Preamble

The House met al Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ABERDEEN HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Coal Industry (Foreign Workers)

Mr. Marples: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the shortage of manpower in the mines, he will now approach the Italian Government with a view to recruiting suitable workers from the unemployed in Italy.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to him on 24th May last.

Mr. Marples: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconcile the rather negative attitude he is now going to take to get workers with the speech of Mr. Arthur Horner, in which he said that there will be a manpower crisis and that there are not sufficient men in the mines?

Mr. Isaacs: It is not for me to answer Mr. Arthur Horner's speech. The position is as I stated then. We are still able to recruit foreign workers from other countries coming out of other industries and bring them into coal mines.

Disputes (Lost Working Days)

Major Bruce: asked the Minister of Labour how many working days have been lost through industrial disputes since the end of the war; and how many were lost during the comparable period after the 1914–18 war.

Mr. Isaacs: The number of working days lost through industrial disputes causing stoppage of work from V.E. day to the end of September, 1949, was approximately 10¼ million. In the corresponding period after 1914–18 war, the number was nearly 170 million.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Do not the figures Oven by the right hon. Gentleman make all the more blameworthy the mess which the Government are making of the economic position?

Mr. Isaacs: If it is blameworthy so to arrange industrial conditions in this country to prevent people coming out on strike, we accept the blame.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: Could my right hon. Friend say how many inches of space per man-hour lost are being given by the Press compared with the space given after the first war?

Professor Savory: How many of these strikes were unofficial? How many hours were taken up purely by unofficial strikes?

Mr. Isaacs: That I could not say without notice, and even then it would not be a complete check-up.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend give the corresponding figures for official and unofficial strikes for the same period in the United States?

Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir, I could not, but I think they would show a rather startling difference.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these two periods are not in any way comparable?

Paid Holidays

Major Bruce: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give an estimate of the number of insured workers now entitled to an annual holiday with pay of at least one working week; and whether he can give an estimate of the number so entitled in 1938 to 1939.

Mr. Isaacs: It is estimated that about 20 million workers are now entitled to annual holidays with pay of not less than one week. In 1938 the number was about 7¾ million.

Mr. Osborne: Could the Minister tell us who wrote these Questions out for him?

Mr. Isaacs: I could not say who wrote them, but I can say who did not write them, and that was me.

Major Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend agree that there is some connection between the answer to this Question and the answer to the previous Question?

Mr. John Paton: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he is aware that this noticeable evidence of social betterment following from Government policy will be received with great satisfaction by the organised workers of this country?

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Can the Minister tell us how much was due to Marshall Aid?

Mr. Harold Davies: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that the increased productivity of the workers of Britain compared with other workers of Europe is in no small way due to the wise policy of private and national enterprise in giving holidays with pay to the workers?

Mr. Isaacs: There is no doubt that industrial relationships in this country, which are better than in any other country in the world, do contribute to this end.

London Docks (Recent Strike)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Labour when and in what form he proposes to publish the result of his investigations into Communist activities prior to and during the recent strike at the London Docks.

Mr. Isaacs: A history of the events leading up to and during the recent dock strikes has been prepared for the information of the various Departments concerned. I am considering when and in what form it can be given wider circulation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Did not the right hon. Gentleman on 20th July, and again on 26th July, give an undertaking that this dossier would be published, and will he say what has caused him to change his mind?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot quite understand why the hon. Gentleman thinks I have changed my mind. I said:

I am considering when and in what form it can be given wider circulation.

Mr. Piratin: Why should the right hon. Gentleman be in any doubt about publishing such statements as he thinks are facts? What is the reason for holding it up, because, if he has something strong against the Communist Party, it surely serves the likes of him to publish it?

Mr. Isaacs: I have twice read my answer which is:
I am considering when and in what form it can be given wider circulation.

Mr. Eden: In view of the Debate which we had and the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman, can he now give us any indication when he will be able to make the statement? He will remember that before we adjourned the impression we had was that it would be made very soon.

Mr. Isaacs: There has been delay. I have got the document, but it has been necessary to go rather wide to check the information in it. It is my desire that it should be given the widest possible circulation.

Building Trade

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Labour how many building workers were registered as employed in the building trade in England and Wales separately on 1st January in each of the years from 1932–39 and from 1946–49, and the latest available figures; and how many were registered as unemployed on the same dates.

Mr. Isaacs: I am having the available information extracted and will send it to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Freeman: Does not this information indicate that there were far more unemployed in the building trade before the war and far more employed since the war, and that if this maximum force of building workers had been employed before the war we should not be in the plight for houses in which we find ourselves today?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot express an opinion on the facts until I have had the information extracted.

Mr. Shurmer: Does he think there ought to be any unemployed building workers in view of the Minister's policy?

Ex-Service Men

Air-Commodore Harvey: asked the Minister of Labour (1) how many ex-officers and other ranks of the Fighting Services, who are registered as unemployed, are over 40 years of age;
(2) how many ex-officers and other ranks of the Fighting Services were registered as unemployed at the latest convenient date.

Mr. Isaacs: I regret that statistics are not available. Persons who have served in His Majesty's Forces are not separately distinguished in the unemployment figures.

Air-Commodore Harvey: How is it that up to about a year ago the right hon. Gentleman was able to give this information, and is there any reason why these men who are suffering considerable hardship and poverty should be forgotten? Has the right hon. Gentleman any views or ideas as to how he is going to render some aid to these men who have served their country so well?

Mr. Isaacs: I do not agree that there is a number of men suffering hardship and poverty because they are ex-Service men. The fact is that when men register for employment at the present time we do not ask them, "Have you or have you not been in the Forces?" We treat them all exactly the same, as workers.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these men, unlike others who were employed in industry during the war, gave us six or seven years of their lives in the Fighting Services? Are they to be forgotten?

Mr. Isaacs: The hon. and gallant Gentleman now talks of six or seven years in the Forces. Is it suggested that those who served six or seven years in the Fighting Services should be treated better than those who served, say, three years?

Major Bruce: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we no longer see them begging in the streets as we did after the first world war?

Commander Noble: Could not the liaison officer of the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry provide some answer to this question?

Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir. As I have indicated, when men come to sign on at the employment exchange we do not ask them whether they have served in the Forces, and we do not intend to ask them.

Mr. Scollan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the tendency of every private enterprise concern was to sack men at 40—"Too old at 40" was a common thing—and that there is nothing to compel them to take them on now? Does the Minister think that they ought to be imposed on nationalised industries when private industry rejects them?

Air-Commodore Harvey: As the Minister has given an unsatisfactory answer and seems to have lost his sympathy with the ex-Service man, I wish to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Control of Engagement Order

Mr. A. Edward Davies: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will now say when he proposes to withdraw the Control of Engagement Order.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) on Tuesday, 18th October, a copy of which I am sending him.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

School Dental Service

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Education whether he has considered the resolution, unanimously adopted by the Representative Board of the British Dental Association, a copy of which has been sent to him, criticising his Department for failure to provide adequate facilities for treatment of oral sepsis among school children; and what improvements he is making in consequence.

Mr. Piratin: asked the Minister of Education whether, following the formation of a Dental Whitley Council, any decision has been reached concerning the salaries of school dentists.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Tomlinson): The School Dental Service has been affected by difficulties over the salaries of dentists employed by local authorities. Negotiations are proceeding with a view to the formation of a Dental


Whitley Council, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and I are hopeful that agreement will soon be reached on its formation. Once this is done, I hope that, with the prospect in view of a salaries settlement, the School Dental Service will be restored to its former efficiency.

Sir J. Mellor: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the present proportion of school dentists to school children?

Mr. Tomlinson: No, Sir, not without notice.

Sir J. Mellor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is tending to improve or to deteriorate at the present time?

Mr. Tomlinson: If the hon. Member will put down a Question, I will let him have the figures.

Mr. Piratin: Is it not the case that the Dental Whitley Council has been formed, has already met, and has not yet arrived at a decision?

Mr. Fernyhough: Will my right hon. Friend consider tying school dentists to their jobs in the same way as miners and agricultural workers are tied to theirs?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Scotland the proportion of dental officers to children is one to 7,800 and can he say whether the figure would be about the same in England?

Mr. Tomlinson: I should not think so. As the hon and gallant Gentleman knows, my writ does not run in Scotland, and I am hesitant about quoting comparative figures.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Education, what is the establishment for school dental officers within the northwest Middlesex educational area; and what is its actual strength.

Mr. Tomlinson: The Authority's proposed establishment for this area is nine full-time officers. At present there is the equivalent of two and a half such officers.

Oral Sepsis

Mr. Gerald Williams: asked the Minister of Education if he will give

figures to illustrate the increase or decrease in oral sepsis amongst school children.

Mr. Tomlinson: I have no separate figures of those dental defects in which oral sepsis is present.

Teachers' Pensions (Payment)

Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Minister of Education if he will arrange for teachers' pensions to be paid monthly.

Mr. Tomlinson: The quarterly payment of teachers' pensions is laid down by statute in the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925, and monthly payment could not be arranged without amending legislation. The adoption of monthly payments would increase substantially the manpower employed and the cost of administering the superannuation Acts.

Sir I. Fraser: In view of the fact that practically all Civil Service pensions are paid monthly and war pensions are paid weekly or monthly, and because of the hardship caused to small people waiting for a quarterly payment, will the right. hon. Gentleman put this down in his file for consideration whenever legislation is possible?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir, I will do that.

Corporal Punishment

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Education whether he is aware that six boys were caned by Mr. W. P. Little at the Chamberlayne Road School in July for kissing girls; whether this punishment was in accordance with his regulations; whether the parents were consulted; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. Tomlinson: I am aware of this incident. The infliction of corporal punishment is not governed by regulations made by me. It is left to local education authorities, who have their own regulations, and to heads of schools. I know of no reason for my intervening in this case.

Mr. Freeman: Did not this incident occur after school hours and outside the school premises on the day before the children were to go for their summer holiday, and does not my right hon. Friend think that the action taken by this


master is likely to lead the children to do secretly what they now do naturally and openly and that, in such circumstances, the parents have the right to be consulted in the matter?

Mr. Tomlinson: I think that every statement of my hon. Friend with regard to what happened makes it quite clear that it is no part of my business to intervene. With regard to an expression of opinion relating to the incident, all I would say is that, in my judgment, I should imagine that the youngsters thought it was worth it.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Surely the real issue is: Was the kissing worth the caning? If we assume that the emotional as to the physical is two to one, then, as the Minister says, the boys have had the best of it. So what is all the fuss about?

Professor Savory: Is there not a danger of this deplorable practice leading to oral sepsis?

Mr. Tomlinson: I do not think so.

Direct Grant Schools (Fees)

Mrs. Leah Manning: asked the Minister of Education whether the fees paid by local education authorities to direct grant schools for free place scholars should include books, stationery, equipment and handicraft lessons.

Mr. Tomlinson: The approved tuition fees at direct grant schools should cover all the normal expenses of attendance at the schools, including books, stationery and equipment. They would cover handicraft lessons if these formed part of a school's ordinary curriculum.

Mrs. Manning: If I give my right hon. Friend an instance in which the managers of a school collect fees for such items, will he take action?

Mr. Tomlinson: I do not know, but I will certainly make inquiries.

University Entrants

Mr. Piratin: asked the Minister of Education what is the percentage of young people leaving school and going to university from secondary modern schools, secondary technical schools, local education authority maintained grammar

schools and independent schools, respectively.

Mr. Tomlinson: The proportion of pupils leaving maintained and assisted secondary grammar schools who proceeded to universities in 1947–48 was 6 per cent.: the proportion of those leaving direct grant schools was 9.5 per cent. As might be expected in view of the normal school leaving age, the percentage from secondary modern and technical schools was negligible. I have no comparable figures for independent schools.

Mr. Piratin: Is it not important that the Minister should try to get information about the percentage of children who leave independent schools and go to universities?

Mr. Tomlinson: The proportion is still roughly what it used to be, but we hope to see changes.

Mrs. Manning: Does the Minister think that the figures indicate the number of children who are capable of benefiting by a university education?

Mr. Tomlinson: No, the figures do not relate to the number of children who actually go to universities; they are the number of children who go direct from school. It is fairly obvious that in those circumstances very few would go direct from the secondary modern schools, but many will probably go later on.

INDIAN MILITARY SERVICE FAMILY PENSION FUND

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what was the amount of the Indian Military Service Family Pension Fund of 1937 when it was transferred to his Department, and what is the amount now; and whether he will make arrangements to publish an Annual Statement of Accounts of the Fund.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Gordon-Walker): £4,811,170 12s. 9d. The amount at the close of the last financial year, 31st March, 1949, is estimated at £4,850,000. The figure is not ascertainable with precision owing to delay in the receipt of certain information from India and


Burma. For the same reason the circulation of annual accounts has unfortunately been delayed. I should add that the practice is not to publish these accounts, but to send a copy to each member. Every effort will be made to resume the practice of issuing each year's accounts promptly.

STERLING EXCHANGE RATE (COMMONWEALTH)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what views have been expressed by the Governments of the Commonwealth countries in regard to the devaluation of the pound sterling.

Mr. Gordon-Walker: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the public statements made by Ministers in the various Commonwealth countries on behalf of their Governments.

Sir T. Moore: What is not clear is this. Was the Minister permitted by the Chancellor to consult the Governments of the Commonwealth before the announcement was made? If so, how long before?

Mr. Gordon-Walker: I think the hon. and gallant Member will realise that information cannot be given about the exchange of views and information between Commonwealth Governments. That practice is very well established. Information was given in this case as early as practicable in the circumstances.

Sir T. Moore: I asked about consultation.

Mr. Gordon-Walker: Information about exchanges between Commonwealth Governments cannot be given because they must be confidential in their very nature.

Sir T. Moore: Why does the hon. Member dodge my question? I asked about consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Utility Goods (Prices)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the result of his discussions on the

subject of the reduction of margins on the sale of utility goods with some of the interests concerned; and whether he intends to take any further action with respect to further such reductions.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the Press notice which was issued after my discussions in August with representatives of the manufacturers and distributors concerned. It gives particulars of the reductions in maximum prices and margins for utility clothing, footwear and household textiles which were brought into force on 26th September. Maximum prices and margins for other household goods are under review.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the President of the Board of Trade say, as his Press notice with its suave ambiguity does not, whether he succeeded in satisfying the people with whom his discussions took place that he was treating them justly?

Mr. Wilson: If the hon. Member who I noticed engaged himself in some activities on this subject during August, is asking me whether I received full agreement from all the interests concerned in the discussions, the answer is of course, "No, Sir." If I had had to wait until I got agreements we should not have got these reductions probably for two or three years.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I did not ask him whether he had obtained agreement? I asked him whether he satisfied the people concerned that he had treated them justly. Will he answer that question?

Mr. Harold Davies: Will my right hon. Friend say whether the reductions which were arranged are being observed throughout the country?

Mr. Wilson: I have no evidence of the contrary, but if I receive any such evidence I will naturally look into it.

Mr. Chetwynd: Will my right hon. Friend give his attention to reducing the margins on non-utility goods as well?

Mr. Cecil Poole: As some of these margins range from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent., does not my right hon. Friend think that some of them are far too high?

Mr. Osborne: Would the right hon. Gentleman give attention to reducing the prices of goods supplied by nationalised industries on the same basis?

American Publications (Imports)

Mr. Erroll: asked the President of the Board of Trade why he is permitting during September and October imports from the United States of America of 1,200,000 cheap American novelettes and Hollywood romances; and if he will take steps to see that these are re-exported to hard currency areas to ensure that no loss of dollars to this country is entailed.

Mr. H. Wilson: No licences to import books of fiction from the United States have been granted during the last four months. In some cases, however, orders had been placed with suppliers in the United States under the authority of licences previously issued. It was a condition of such licences that at least 50 per cent. by value of imports must be re-exported.

Mr. Erroll: Since the right hon. Gentleman admits the bulk of the information in the Question, can he say why it is necessary at the present time to import books bearing titles such as "Murder by Marriage," "Love is the Winner," "Miss Dilly says No," "Lady Godiva and Master Tom"?

Mr. Wilson: I have not the same knowledge of this literature as the hon. Gentleman. I have already answered him by saying that no new licences have been issued during the last four months.

American Films (Imports)

Mr. Blackburn: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the total amount of the dollar earnings of American films imported into this country in the first 12 months since the introduction of the 45 per cent. film quota; and what information he possesses as to the use to which the balance of such earnings not paid in dollars is being put, or is to be put, in this country.

Mr. H. Wilson: With effect from June, 1948, the amounts remittable in dollars to America in respect of the earnings of American films imported into this country have been limited by the Film Agreement of 11th March, 1948, to 17 million dollars

a year, plus the return of the dollar revenues accruing to British film producers in respect of the net earnings of their films in America. The total amount which would have been so remittable within the last 12 months in the absence of this limitation must have been of the approximate order of 45 million dollars. The balance of unremittable sterling is being or will be applied to the various purposes specified in the Agreement, which in particular include film production within the sterling area.

Mr. Blackburn: Does not the President of the Board of Trade think that there is a very serious difference between the 45 million dollars and the actual 17 million dollars which were paid? In the circumstances, will he not review the whole subject urgently. We cannot afford to go on paying dollars to America for films.

Mr. Wilson: The 45 million dollars are those which have been earned by American films in this country and not the amount which has been remitted. It represents a very considerable reduction on figures for previous years.

Mr. Blackburn: Is it not a fact that the difference between 45 million dollars and 17 million dollars is being invested in this country, and also that there is a net loss of dollars inasmuch as we have to pay interest on them?

Mr. Wilson: A good deal of this money is being invested in current film production in this country, which I think we should all desire to see.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the increase in the price to be paid for imported American films as a result of devaluation; and, in view of the likely effect on the British film distribution industry, whether he will immediately review the serious position of the production side of the industry so that an adequate number of good British films may be produced to fill the gap.

Mr. H. Wilson: The Anglo-American Film Agreement of 11th March, 1948, provides for monthly payments to America in respect of the earnings of American films at the predetermined rate of 17 million dollars a year. This arrangement is unaffected by


the change in the exchange rate. Inasmuch, however, as these dollar payments will in future absorb more sterling than before, the sterling balances accruing to the film companies in respect of their unremittable earnings will be reduced from now onwards by about £1¾ million a year. As regards the latter part of the Question, I have under constant review the difficult position of British film producers and the need for the highest obtainable output of good British films.

Mr. Gallacher: Has the President seen the statement recently made by the National Association of Theatrical and Kine employees, that as a result of devaluation many cinemas in this country may have to close down; and would not he arrange a conference of producers, distributors, exhibitors and trade unionists in order to work out a plan for increasing the quantity, quality and entertainment value of British films to meet this situation?

Mr. Wilson: I have seen the statement referred to, and I do not agree with it in any particular whatsoever. So far as discussions with the industry are concerned I am in constant touch both with the production side and the exhibition and distribution side.

Mr. Harold Davies: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that while his Department follows the civilised and sane policy of encouraging excellent productions, like "The Third Man," the British film industry ultimately will be able to face any competition in the world?

China

Mr. Piratin: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to enter into trade negotiations with the newly established Government of the People's Republic of China.

Mr. H. Wilson: No steps to enter into trade negotiations with the Communist authorities in China are at present under consideration, nor has any approach on this subject yet been received from them.

Mr. Piratin: But my Question was whether the President of the Board of Trade would make an approach to the Government of China. In view of the need for us to trade with China—in view,

for that matter, of the pressure from representatives of the Party opposite to carry out trade with China—perhaps he would give the matter some consideration.

Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman seems to be making some unwarrantable assumptions as to who are the Government of China.

Mr. Harrison: In view of the experiences of British nationals in cities like Tientsin and Peipin, where the present authority has been established a good time, would my right hon. Friend take the necessary steps to promote or establish even ordinary trading methods, which I am sure a good many British nationals would desire to establish in these cities where the Communists have been in power for so long?

Exports

Sir Frank Sanderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the total of British exports in 1928, 1929 and 1930 and, of these totals, what was the total amount of exports which went to the present hard currency countries; and, following the suspension of gold payments by the Bank of England in 1931, what were the total exports for 1932, 1933 and 1934 and, of these totals, what was the total of exports which went to the present hard currency countries.

Mr. H. Wilson: As the reply contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir F. Sanderson: Could the Minister state whether the statistics which he proposes to circulate will be shown in pounds sterling or tonnages, or both?

Mr. Wilson: I have the figures here and I shall be able to circulate them in pounds sterling. It would be quite impossible to show figures of this kind in tonnages, because of the different denominations involved.

Mr. McAdam: May I ask the Minister if the figures issued will show comparable figures for imports covering the period referred to in the Question?

Mr. Wilson: The Question asked for the exports. If my hon. Friend will put down a Question on the imports I shall be glad to give him the figures.

Following are the figures:






United Kingdom Exports
To present hard currency markets






£ million
£ million


1928
…
…
…
723·6
155·8


1929
…
…
…
729·3
155·4


1930
…
…
…
570·8
118·2


1932
…
…
…
365·0
63·1


1933
…
…
…
367·9
72·5


1934
…
…
…
396·0
76·3

Sugar Industry

Mr. Keeling: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will direct the Monopolies Commission to investigate and report on the refining of sugar.

Mr. H. Wilson: The Monopolies Commission is at work on the six cases referred to them in March, and is not yet ready to undertake further work. I cannot anticipate the choice of subjects for future references.

Mr. Keeling: Well then, was not it bootless for the President to make a speech accusing the sugar industry of being a harmful monopoly unless he was prepared straight away to refer this matter to the Commission?

Mr. Wilson: The phrase I used was that it was a monopoly—I should not have thought that fact was in any dispute—as defined under the Monopolies Act, of which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has seen a copy. I did not use the phrase that it was a harmful monopoly.

Mr. Keeling: Does the President deny that he said that in view of the fact that it was a monopoly in which one of the people's basic foodstuffs was concerned, the sugar industry should be entrusted to the representatives of the people?

Mr. Wilson: That seems to be a very different thing from the statement just attributed to me by the hon. Gentleman.

Pottery Industry (Development Council)

Mr. Edward Davies: asked the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been made in establishing a development council for the pottery industry; and what is the cause of the recent delay.

Mr. H. Wilson: I met representatives of the British Pottery Manufacturers' Federation last week to discuss with them

proposals which had been put to both sides of the industry in an attempt to reach an agreed solution to this problem. I have since been in touch with the National Society of Pottery Workers and hope that it will shortly be possible to announce a decision.

Mr. Davies: In view of the need to get the co-operation of both sides of the industry, and the efforts at compromise which have been made, and all the delay already incurred, can we have a firm undertaking that a decision will be reached very soon?

Mr. Wilson: Yes, Sir. I am conscious of the very long delay, due to my efforts to get the co-operation of both sides of the industry. This delay cannot drag on any longer, and following a meeting now being arranged with both sides of the industry I think that all parties will agree that we must come to a decision immediately after it.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE

Incident, Throgmorton Street

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why an estimated crowd of 4,000 men was permitted to block Throgmorton Street on Monday, 19th September; what prosecutions are pending for obstruction; and why the police failed to take effective steps to deal with the situation.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I have no direct responsibility for police arrangements in the City of London, but, in reply to inquiries made of him the Commissioner of Police for the City informs me that the crowd at its peak did not exceed 1,500 persons including sightseers and caused no serious inconvenience to the general public. The Commissioner informs me that the situation did not call for any drastic action by the police who, in his view, carried out their duties adequately, and that no prosecutions are pending for obstruction.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his reply will cause great disappointment to millions of workers who will naturally feel that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor? Will he consult with the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to


endeavouring to collect, in additional taxation on the ill-gotten gains they made that day, what we think ought to have been collected in the police court?

Mr. Ede: I cannot help thinking that it is impossible for me to do other than get the information from the Commissioner of Police. I have no power to instruct him, and I have given the House faithfully the reply he gave to me.

Major Guy Lloyd: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many representatives of the Bank of England were in this crowd?

Mr. C. Poole: Would not the Home Secretary have been rather amazed if the Commissioner of Police had made any other statement than that? Does not he consider the diversion of traffic something in the nature of an inconvenience to people who desired to use this street?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I have every confidence in the Commissioner of Police for the City of London to give me truthful replies to the questions put to him.

Brigadier Medlicott: As the effect of the law on that day is understood to be that the Stock Exchange should be closed, would not it have been a good thing in the administration of the law that it should in fact have remained closed?

Mr. Ede: As I understand it the Stock Exchange was closed, but certain people, some of whom I understand normally do business inside the Stock Exchange, met outside. If there was any infraction of the law it was not an infraction of the law which I am called upon to deal with.

Mr. S. Silverman: Would my right hon. Friend ask the Commissioner of Police, if in his opinion 1,500 people collected on the corner of the street caused no obstruction or inconvenience to anybody, what is the limit to the number of people on the corner of the street which, in his opinion, would cause some inconvenience?

Mr. Ede: I am quite sure my hon. Friend is aware that the question of fact whether there is an obstruction or not is a matter for the court and not for an officer of police.

Assault Cases

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many violent attacks upon Jewish people have been made in the past 12 months in the Metropolitan Police area; in how many cases arrests have been made; and how many persons proved guilty of these attacks were under 21 years of age.

Mr. Ede: I am informed that out of a total of 866 violent assaults in the Metropolitan police district during the 12 months ended 8th October, 55 were made upon people believed to be Jews. Arrests were made in 33 of these cases. Nine of the persons proved guilty were under 21 years of age.

Mr. Greenwood: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any attempt is being made to discover any persons responsible for inciting these young people to commit these offences?

Mr. Ede: I am very gravely concerned about these assaults, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the police are very active in trying to ascertain not merely the people who commit assaults, but people who may have incited the committal of the assaults.

Mr. H. Hynd: In view of the continuing number of these incidents, particularly in the Hackney area, will the Home Secretary consider putting on some more plain clothes police to watch that district?

Mr. Ede: I can assure my hon. Friend that the police, having regard to their manpower, do everything they can with both uniformed and plain clothes men to deal with the matter.

Mr. Mikardo: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to the recent statement by a newspaper reporter, contained in a letter in the "New Statesman and Nation," that he observed partiality on the part of the police in favour of these attackers and against the victim on one occasion? Has my right hon. Friend any statement to make in connection with the matter?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir, my attention was drawn to the letter, which was signed with a nom de plume. I have informed the Editor of the "New Statesman" that


if the writer of the letter will tell me of the date, time and place at which the incidents he says occurred were witnessed by him I will cause a judicial inquiry to be held into the circumstances.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any arrests have been made of the persons who assaulted Mr. and Mrs. Langley on the night of 4th October; and what inquiries have been made of the owner of the green Austin van which was in the vicinity at the time of the assault.

Mr. Ede: The hon. Member is no doubt referring to an alleged assault on a Mr. and Mrs. Ottolangui; no arrest has yet been made but police inquiries are continuing. It is not in the public interest to give details of the steps which the police take to investigate offences.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the Minister say why he used the words "alleged assault"? Is it not the case that Mrs. Langley was treated in hospital for her injuries and that the police who actually arrived on the scene made no real attempt to pursue those who had assaulted Mr. Langley's wife; nor was any attempt made to locate the van from which the signal came for the attack?

Mr. Ede: I used the words "alleged assault" because no assault has yet been proved. With regard to the action of the police, I believe that they took every effort which they possibly could to find the offenders and that they are still continuing their efforts.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that the police appeared on the scene, the offenders ran off, and the police made no serious attempt to capture them?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the police have made any progress in apprehending the assailants, in the case reported by the bus conductor to the Dalston police station, of the persons who stopped the 35 bus at Homerton, Hackney, entered it, attacked a man and were able to leave the bus without any police arriving on the scene.

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I am informed that neither the police nor, so far as the police

know, the parties concerned intend to prosecute charges of assault arising out of this incident; there is some conflict of evidence. Police inquiries are however, continuing with a view to other charges being brought.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not a very serious situation that a bus can be stopped, a gang get on to it, make an assault, get off, and the bus go on, and for it to seem as if the police are not concerned about the matter at all?

Mr. Ede: This incident arose after a meeting which was held about one mile from the place where the assault occurred, and no notice was given to the police by the promoters of the meeting that they intended to hold the meeting.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that if the police refrained from prosecution in every case where there was a conflict of evidence, most of our criminal courts could close down now, and will he further bear in mind that, unfortunate and unjustified as it may turn out to be, in fact most of the people living in the East End of London have lost all confidence in the willingness of the police to protect them?

Mr. Ede: I cannot accept the imputation in the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question. The police have to discharge a very difficult duty in the East End of London, and, having very carefully investigated the various complaints that have been made, they carry my complete confidence. The police would have been helped on this occasion had the promoters of the meeting, which was the cause of the gathering of the people, intimated to them that a meeting was to be held.

Strength, Metropolitan Area

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the establishment of police in the Metropolitan area; and what is the present strength.

Mr. Ede: The male establishment is 19,747 and the present strength (excluding men seconded or serving overseas) is 15,414. The corresponding numbers for women police are 338 and 249.

Brigadier Medlicott: While those figures appear to show a welcome improvement, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the rate of intake?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I am not, but I am glad to say that for the country as a whole August and September of this year were the best months for recruitment to the police force for a very long time.

CONTRACEPTIVES (SLOT MACHINE SALES)

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that automatic slot machines for the sale of contraceptives are placed outside cinemas in certain areas of Greater London, in Kent and in Surrey; and what steps he is taking to draw local authorities' attention to the urgent need of counteracting the danger to the health of our people contained in this open invitation to juveniles to indulge in indiscriminate sexual intercourse.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to draw the attention of local authorities to the dangers likely to result from the sale of contraceptives from automatic slot machines.

Mr. William Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that automatic slot machines for the sale of contraceptives have been set up in the streets of Brighton; and whether he has communicated with the local authority on the possibility of such machines doing harm to the youth of the borough.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: May I raise one point with you, Mr. Speaker, on a matter of procedure on my Question? This Question was put to the Minister of Health, because the Clerks at the Table informed me a fortnight ago that they found themselves unable to accept a Question of mine on the same matter to the Home Secretary. Now it has been referred by the Minister of Health to the Home Secretary. I do not object to that, because I consider the Home Secretary the proper person to reply to it, but had I been allowed to frame my Question to the Home Secretary it would have been in a form very different from that in which it appears.

Mr. Ede: May I say to the hon. Gentleman that I did not try to evade answering the Question? The moment it reached my office I considered the reply that should be given.
Yes, Sir. I have given the most careful consideration to this question, and I have come to the conclusion that the social mischiefs involved are so serious as to require immediate action. I have accordingly given instructions for a model by-law to be drafted prohibiting the sale of contraceptives by means of automatic machines. This model by-law will be circulated to all county and borough councils for their consideration, and, if adopted, will be subject to confirmation by me.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole nation will be relieved at the attitude which he has now adopted on this issue? I am not sure in my own mind without reflection whether he is dealing with it quite on a national basis in a form which he might possibly adopt. I should like to ask him this question. How soon does the right hon. Gentleman anticipate that this procedure will be completed, in view of the fact that the exhibition of these contraceptive machines is extending rapidly all over the United Kingdom at the present time, and is a very grave evil?

Mr. Ede: I shall see that this procedure is carried through with the greatest expedition, and I cannot help but think that the reception given by the House today to this question will be an indication to the people who have been engaged in this particular activity of the state of the public conscience in the matter.

Mr. Eden: While we entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said—warmly agree—may I ask him this question? I am not quite clear why he will proceed by way of a model by-law and not by legislation. Will not that be optional? Why does the right hon. Gentleman prefer that procedure?

Mr. Ede: It will be noticed that two of the three Questions that I have answered suggest that it is a matter for some local concern. My own view is that we should have to make arrangements for enforcement by some local means, and that, therefore, to secure the active consent and approval of the local authority


concerned would probably be a very good way of ensuring that the law will be enforced. I am quite sure the House will agree that we do not want, whether by way of legislation or by by-law, merely to pass some words, and that we want to be quite certain that the by-law or the law will be effective.

Mr. Lipson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that legislation would be preferable, and that he can rely upon all local authorities to see that the law is obeyed? But, in any case, can he tell us when this model by-law will be made public, because in view of the interest aroused in this matter the public should be assured that it is likely to be effective?

Mr. Ede: I will do my best. There are, I may say, some difficulties about drafting, whether it is a law or a by-law, but I can assure the House that, from the moment my attention was drawn to the matter, I have lost no time in trying to do something effective.

Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: Since one of the main purposes of installing these machines was to try them out with a view to marketing them to gain dollars for us, will my right hon. Friend enter into consultation with the President of the Board of Trade or the Minister of Supply to look into the whole matter, because that is equally important?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. These are not special machines that are manufactured for this purpose only. If a receptacle of the same size is used these machines can be used for other purposes, and a coin of the same weight will work them. There are no special machines for this purpose. What we are proposing to do is to prohibit the sale of contraceptives from the machines.

TAXI-CABS, LONDON (ROOF GUARD RAILS)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why new London taxi-cabs have no roof luggage rails.

Mr. Ede: Roof guard rails are required on taxis only where it is intended to carry luggage on the roof. As luggage is now more usually accommodated on the platform,

the fitting of roof rails is largely discontinued on new cabs.

Mr. Keeling: But is not the Home Secretary aware that there is happily an increasing number of families who wish to put their perambulators on top of taxis? Would it not, therefore, be desirable that the taxis in future should have these luggage rails?

Mr. Ede: This matter was under consideration when the conditions of fitness were last reviewed, and there was no unanimity in the trade, and it was then agreed that the requirement to fix roof rails should remain optional. I have no doubt that if there is a change in custom there will be a change in the attitude of the trade, and of the committee which deals with it.

MAINTENANCE ORDERS (ENFORCEMENT)

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation in the lifetime of the present Parliament to facilitate the reciprocal enforcement of orders for aliment and maintenance in England and Scotland.

Mr. Ede: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I hope that it will be possible to introduce legislation on this subject before long, but I am sorry that I cannot give an undertaking in the sense suggested.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Spectacles

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Health what is the current average lapse of time between testing eyesight and provision of spectacles under the National Health Service.

Mr. David Grenfell: asked the Minister of Health if he will state the number of applicants for optical glasses on the waiting lists all over the United Kingdom on 1st September, 1949; the number who have been waiting for over six months on that date; and whether he


will state the number of applications during the years ending 1st September, 1948 and 1949, respectively.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I regret that information is not available in the precise form requested, but about 3 million pairs of spectacles were on order on 1st September, 1949. There are still delays in supply of anything up to six months or so, but by no means all cases take as long as that and better supplies are improving the position steadily. The number of spectacles ordered in the two years ended 1st September, 1948, and 1949 were, respectively, 4.5 millions and 9.9 millions.

Sir J. Mellor: Is the Minister aware that I have sent to his Department a number of cases in which the interval was over nine months and in some cases over 12 months, and where the lenses required were not of an unusual type? Does he consider that such a delay is either necessary or justified?

Mr. Bevan: There is, of course, considerable variation in the amount of delay involved in individual cases. I know, for example, of cases where spectacles have been forthcoming in a few weeks. All that I can say is that the amount of delay is rapidly decreasing, the supply is now in excess of the demand, and we are now eating into the arrears.

Mr. Harrison: While recognising that there must inevitably be some delay, has my right hon. Friend made any progress in the universal establishment of a system of priority for the provision of spectacles when urgently needed?

Mr. Bevan: As I have explained before to the House, it is extremely difficult to have a system of priorities which would not actually clutter up the whole system. The opticians have been asked to give consideration always to urgent cases, and in many cases they have done so.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: Can the Minister inform the House of the percentage of spectacle lenses exported?

Mr. Bevan: So far as I know, there may be some prestige exports, but actually over 3 million pairs of lenses have been imported.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: Can the Minister say how many pairs of spectacles were supplied during the two years to which he has referred?

Mr. Bevan: Not without notice.

Blood Donors (Badge)

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the issue of a special badge to be worn by blood donors.

Mr. Bevan: The issue of badges to blood donors who fulfil the qualifying conditions has already been approved by the King and I hope that it will be possible to make the first presentations in the early part of next year.

Mr. Wyatt: Can my right hon. Friend say whether these badges will be retrospective in effect, in the sense that previous donors will qualify?

Mr. Bevan: Nearly 20,000 badges have been ordered and tenders have been invited for another order of the same size, so I understand that some of them will at least be retrospective.

Mr. Austin: Will my right hon. Friend consider the setting up of a blood donors' establishment in the Palace of Westminster, both for the necessary purpose of blood-letting among Members of Parliament and of setting a good example to the country?

Chemists' Accounts

Mr. Stanley Prescott: asked the Minister of Health what total sum of money was owing to chemists throughout Britain under the National Health scheme as at 30th September, 1949; and how far it is still the practice to settle accounts on a monthly basis.

Mr. Bevan: It is impracticable at present to price prescriptions in time for a full monthly settlement but chemists are paid on account on a monthly basis. The total amount oustanding at the 30th September in respect of prescriptions dispensed in England and Wales to 31st August, 1949, is estimated at about £1½ million which is less than the total value of one month's prescriptions.

Oral Sepsis

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied with the facilities provided under the National Health Scheme to deal with oral sepsis.

Mr. Bevan: These facilities are I think reasonably satisfactory when the general shortage of dentists is taken into account.

Mr. Williams: While the Minister is very optimistic, will he treat this case as being very serious?

Mr. Bevan: The term "oral sepsis" is a very general one and can include conditions other than those of defective teeth.

FARM WORKERS' HOUSES, BERKSHIRE

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Health in how many cases in the past year the rural district councils in Berkshire have had to postpone the issue of permits for the building of farm workers' houses by private enterprise because of his Department's insistence on the 4–1 ratio in favour of council houses; and if, in view of the adverse effect on food production, he will allow farm workers' houses to be built irrespective of the general quota where the urgency of the need is certified by the county agricultural executive committee.

Mr. Bevan: The information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available. I have no evidence that the existing arrangements for the provision of houses in rural districts of Berkshire adversely affect food production.

Mr. Hurd: Will the Minister please make inquiries, because I get many letters from farmers who want to build houses for their workers who have been held up for six or nine months?

Mr. Bevan: I do not agree with that.

Mr. Gooch: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that the best way is to allow the district councils to build the houses?

Mr. Bevan: My hon. Friend is aware that the provision of houses for renting in rural areas has made very considerable progress in the last year or so.

UNOFFICIAL STRIKES

Mr. Osborne: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the damage to our economic recovery caused by unofficial strikes, he will set up a Royal Commission to inquire what improvements could be made in trades union organisation to prevent these unofficial strikes and to make recommendations.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been asked to reply. No, Sir.

Mr. Osborne: Does the answer mean that the Prime Minister is entirely satisfied with the working of the trades union organisation as it is today, or that he regards unofficial strikes as of no importance?

Mr. Morrison: I should be surprised if I found any one completely satisfied with the working of anything; that would be far too sweeping. We think that this is not a matter where an inquiry would provide a solution. It obviously is a matter for the discipline and internal organisation of the trade unions themselves in relation to some of their members, and it can only be dealt with effectively in that way.

BASIC SLAG (SUPPLIES)

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will hasten supplies of basic slag to farmers for autumn application.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Thomas Williams): I am satisfied that all the basic slag that can be made available for autumn application is being supplied to farmers as quickly as possible.

Mr. G. Williams: Can the Minister say why there is so little? Surely there are plenty of steel by-products, but the farmers cannot get it even if they put in their orders three or four months ahead of time?

Mr. T. Williams: The hon. Gentleman cannot be aware of the fact that supplies sent to farmers up to the end of September are well above those of any previous year.

Mr. G. Williams: They are still very inadequate.

HONG KONG (SITUATION)

Mr. Eden: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statement to make on the position at Hong Kong?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): Yes, Sir. The latest information from the Governor of Hong Kong is that Chinese Communist regular forces arrived at Shumchun on the Chinese side of the frontier on 17th October. The frontier is quiet, and no incidents have been reported to me. There had up to the time of the Governor's last report been no incursion of retiring Nationalist troops into Hong Kong territory. A number of refugees have arrived in the territory.
In the Colony the position remains satisfactory. The railway service to Canton is temporarily suspended owing to damage to a bridge in the Chinese section, but the Governor reports that there is a good possibility of resumption of traffic fairly soon, when repairs have been effected and the track surveyed.

Mr. Eden: I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept that, while there are no doubt many differences between us on other subjects, I think I can say that in all parts of the House there is both thought for and confidence in our authorities, our commanders and our troops in Hong Kong.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Will the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that, so far as the defence of Hong Kong is concerned, finance will not come into the question at all?

Mr. Pickthorn: Has the right hon. Gentleman any estimate of the number of refugees who have entered Hong Kong, as he said in his original reply?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have no very recent information, except that of three or four days ago when the Governor reported that the numbers were comparatively small.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House any information about Communist activities within the Colony?

Mr. Creech Jones: Nothing is being done which is prejudicial to law and

order in the territory. This matter is, of course, under the very close supervision of the Governor and the authorities there.

Major Legge-Bourke: Have any special arrangements been made to ensure that there will be adequate food supplies in the event of large numbers of refugees coming into the Colony?

Mr. Creech Jones: The whole question of supplies to the territory—both to the Colony and the leased territories—has for some time received the most careful attention of the Government, and I think it can be said that very satisfactory arrangements have been made.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Eden: Could the Leader of the House tell us the Business for next week?

Mr. Herbert Morrison: The Business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 24TH OCTOBER.—Committee stage of the Auxiliary and Reserve Forces Bill and, if agreeable to the House, the concluding stages;
Consideration of Motions to approve the Town and Country Planning (Mineral) Regulations, and similar Regulations for Scotland.
TUESDAY, 25TH OCTOBER.—Conclusion of the Report stage and Third Reading of the Coast Protection Bill [Lords];
Second Reading of the Coal Industry (No. 2) Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY, 26TH AND 27TH OCTOBER.—The Government propose to afford an opportunity for the House to debate the statement to be made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on Monday.
Also on Thursday, at the end of the Debate, we shall ask the House to take the Committee stage of the Ways and Means Resolution relating to Profits Tax.
FRIDAY, 28TH OCTOBER.—Report stage of the Ways and Means (Profits Tax) Resolution;
Committee stage of the Nurses Bill [Lords];
Committee and remaining stages of the Telegraph Bill, and of the following Consolidation Bills: House of Commons


(Redistribution of Seats) Bill [Lords]' Representation of the People Bill [Lords], and Civil Aviation Bill [Lords].

Mr. Eden: Of course, the House is not aware of the nature of the statement to be made on Monday, which makes it difficult to discuss time, and all that. Is the right hon. Gentleman sure that the time lapse between Monday and Wednesday will be adequate to allow the House to examine the statement and properly to debate it on the Wednesday, if it is to be, as we all hope in the national interest it will be a wide and very important statement?

Mr. Morrison: I confess that, as the House of Commons has, I had such thoughts when I was questioned the other day. I thought the reaction of the Opposition then was that we ought to take it fairly soon. My own feeling is that the interval will give time for the House to appreciate the points that are made in the Prime Minister's statement, the nature of the statement, and so on. I think it will be all right from that point of view. There is something to be said, on reflection, for the viewpoint that when the statement is made there ought not to be material time between that statement and the Debate. I really think it will be better to take it on the Wednesday and Thursday as proposed.

Mr. Eden: I only want to be quite clear. What we had wanted was Thursday and Monday of the following week, to give at least another day for examination. However, apparently the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied that the interval is enough. If he has doubts when the statement is prepared that it will not be enough, I hope he will think it right to postpone the Debate for a day, if that is thought to be desirable.

Mr. Morrison: I have a fairly good idea of the shape of things to come—at any rate between now and Monday—and, if I may say so with respect, I think that two days is really about the right period for this Debate. If I thought it ought to be more I would willingly consider it, but one can have too long a time as well as too short a time, and my own view is that two days will be about right for this Debate.

Mr. Eden: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what he has in mind as to the form the Debate will take? There is the Prime Minister's statement on Monday; what form will the Debate take on Wednesday?

Mr. Morrison: So that there shall be no risk of the House being restricted in the Debate—for example, if the question of legislation should emerge, either on our side or if the Opposition might wish to suggest it, I do not want the House to be inhibited from debating it—I think the most convenient form would be for the Government to put down a Motion which will enable the Debate to take a quite wide form.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: The right hon. Gentleman says that two days will be enough. Did I not understand him to say, that on Thursday, in addition to the resumption of the Debate, there will be part of the Profits Tax Resolution Debate as well? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that that is a reasonable provision?

Mr. Morrison: We thought it was reasonable to take that for two reasons. For one thing, the economics of the Profits Tax will, I think, be debatable during the two days' Debate; and the other thing is that a Bill on the subject will follow, so that the House will get an opportunity to come back to the subject again. These are two additional days that we have got to find, and we did not think it unreasonable to ask the House to be so good as to take that Motion, which we hope will go through expeditiously.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: In view of the fact that the Debate the other day did not come to grips with the subject at all, and in view of the fact that this is likely to be a very important Debate indeed, will the Lord President please not close his mind to the possibility of having at least three days for debating the proposals announced on Monday, whether those days be next week or the week after?

Mr. Morrison: With great respect, I cannot be punished, so to speak, if in the opinion of the hon. Gentleman the last Debate misfired somewhat; nor would I dare express an opinion about that, because I might get into trouble with the House. I really think that two days is


the right period. My own judgment is—and everybody is entitled to his opinion—that we shall get a better Debate in two days than we should if it were extended to three days.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: As the Government have taken at least a month to make up their minds on what the cuts should be, surely it would be wiser and fairer to give the Opposition and the country more than two days to appreciate what those cuts will involve?

Mr. Gallacher: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the opposing forces on the Government Front Bench will want to speak and how much time they will take?

Mr. Wyatt: Is it the intention of the Government at any time during the lifetime of this Parliament to have a Debate on Commonwealth Relations, as we have not yet had one?

Mr. Morrison: That would be a good subject for a Supply Day, but I rather fancy they have all gone. Therefore, in view of the state of the Parliamentary timetable, I am driven to answer that it would have been a good subject had it been chosen for a Supply Day.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Will the Government's Motion for the Debate on Wednesday and Thursday be tabled next Monday so that the House will have an opportunity to see what it is?

Mr. Morrison: I should imagine that the Motion will be put in on Monday night at the latest. We shall, of course, do our best to meet the convenience of the House in that matter.

Mr. Beswick: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to the Motion on the Order Paper, signed by 70 Members, calling for high level discussions on the international control and development of atomic energy? Can he say whether an opportunity will be given to discuss this Motion in the near future?
[That this House, while appreciating the great contribution made by the Prime Minister and the Government to the cause of international control of atomic energy, affirms its belief that the Prime Minister should take the initiative in proposing a

conference between the heads of States, particularly the United States and the U.S.S.R., with a view to solving the existing deadlock and ending the race for the production of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction, and also believes that a supra-national Atomic Development Corporation should be set up and supported by all those nations which are willing to do so even if every nation in the world is not vet, at this moment, ready to join it.]

Mr. Morrison: I am bound to say I am surprised that the number of signatures is as low as 70, which is below the usual average. I am awfully sorry, but I see no prospect, in the immediate future at any rate, of being able to give facilities for the discussion of that Motion.

Mr. Henry Usborne: Leaving aside the number of names that have or have not been put down, does my right hon. Friend realise that there is a great feeling at the moment in the country that this subject ought to be discussed, and that if the House entirely ignores it, the country will not be at all happy about it? It does seem to me to be an important subject for discussion by this House.

Mr. Morrison: We must consider whether anything useful would come out of the discussion in relation to other things we have to do. The matter has been exhaustively discussed at the United Nations, and I gather that it is still on the agenda.

Mr. Spence: In regard to the economic Debate, in view of the large number of Members who will want to take part, will the right hon. Gentleman consider suspending the Rule for an agreed period on the first day?

Mr. Morrison: I will consider that.

Mr. Rogers: Are we likely to have an opportunity soon of discussing nationalised transport?

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend seems to have brought transports of delight to the Opposition. I do not see any immediate prospects, but, as the House knows, I did hope that after discussion with the Opposition it would be possible from time to time to debate some of the annual reports of the nationalised indus


tries. [HON. MEMBERS: "You promised."] I promised to discuss it on a reasonable basis. It may possibly be one of the subjects.

Mr. Harold Davies: In view of the great importance of the Colonial areas in the dollar crisis, will an opportunity be given to the Colonial Secretary to make a statement and for the House to discuss the subject in the near future?

Mr. Morrison: That presumably could be raised next week, but whether my right hon. Friend makes a statement is for him to decide.

Mr. Cecil Poole: Coming back to nationalised transport, will the Lord President give serious consideration to the request of my hon. Friend, because it would afford an opportunity for the Opposition to tell us to where the £20 million of their alleged £25 million has disappeared.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

The House divided: Ayes, 239; Noes, 105.

Division No. 255.]
AYES
3.45 p.m.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Dye, S.
Kinley, J.


Albu, A. H.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Kirby, B. V.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V.
Edelman, M.
Lavers, S.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
Lee, F. (Hulme)


Allen Scholefield (Crewe)
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Leslie, J. R.


Attewell, H. C.
Evans, John (Ogmore)
Lever, N. H.


Austin, H. Lewis
Ewart, R.
Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)


Awbery, S. S.
Farthing, W. J.
Lipson, D. L.


Ayles, W. H.
Fernyhough, E.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. R.
Field, Capt. W. J.
Longden, F.


Balfour, A.
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Lyne, A. W.


Barton, C.
Follick, M.
McAdam, W.


Battley, J. R.
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
McGhee, H. G.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Gallacher, W.
Mack, J. D.


Benson, G.
Gibbins, J.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)


Beswick, F.
Gilzean, A.
Maclean, N. (Govan)


Blackburn, A. R.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
McLeavy, F.


Blyton, W. R.
Gooch, E. G.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Bottomley, A. G.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Bowen, R.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)


Bramall, E. A.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Grey, C. F.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Guest, Dr. L. Haden
Medland, H. M.


Brown, George (Belper)
Guy, W. H.
Mellish, R. J.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
Mikardo, Ian


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil
Mitchison, G. R.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Monslow, W.


Burden, T. W.
Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Burke, W. A.
Hardy, E. A.
Morley, R.


Byers, Frank
Harrison, J.
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)


Callaghan, James
Haworth J.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)


Chamberlain, R. A.
Herbison, Miss M.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)


Champion, A. J.
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Moyle, A.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Holman, P.
Nally, W.


Cluse, W. S.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Neal. H. (Claycross)


Cocks, F. S.
Horabin, T. L.
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)


Coldrick, W.
Houghton, Douglas
Oldfield, W. H.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Hoy, J.
Oliver, G. H.


Comyns, Dr. L.
Hubbard, T.
Pargiter, G. A.


Cook, T. F.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Parker, J.


Cooper, G.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)
Parkin, B. T.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N. W.)
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Cove, W. G.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Pearson, A.


Crawley, A.
Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)
Piratin, P.


Daines, P.
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon G. A.
Popplewell, E.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield)
Janner, B.
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Jay, D. P. T.
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Price, M. Philips


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Jenkins, R. H.
Pritt, D. N.


Deer, G.
Johnston, Douglas
Proctor, W. T.


Delargy, H. J.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley)
Pryde, D. J.


Dobbie, W.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Ranger, J.


Dodds, N. N.
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Rankin, J.


Donovan, T.
Keenan, W.
Reeves, J.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Kenyon, C.
Reid, T. (Swindon)




Rhodes, H.
Stubbs, A. E.
Wheatley, Rt. Hn. John (Edinb'gh, E.)


Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith
White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)
Swingler, S.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Sylvester, G. O.
Wigg, George


Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Wilkins, W. A.


Rogers, G. H. R.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Ross, William (Kilmarnock)
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Scollan, T.
Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Scott-Elliot, W.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Shackleton, E. A. A.
Thurtle, Ernest
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Sharp, Granville
Tiffany, S.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Shurmer, P.
Tolley, L.
Willis, E.


Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Usborne, Henry
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Simmons, C. J.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.
Woods, G. S.


Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.
Viant, S. P.
Wyatt, W.


Skinnard, F. W.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)
Yates, V. F.


Smith, C. (Colchester)
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)
Warbey, W. N.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)
Watkins, T. E.



Snow, J. W.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Solley, L. J.
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)
Mr. Collindridge and Mr. Bowden.


Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)





NOES


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Head, Brig. A. H.
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.


Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Scot. Univ.)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.


Baldwin, A. E.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Odey, G. W.


Baxter, A. B.
Howard, Hon. A.
Osborne, C.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Hurd, A.
Pickthorn, K.


Bower, N.
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Prescott, stanley


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Raikes, H. V.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Keeling, E. H.
Ramsay, Maj. S.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Channon, H.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Langford-Holt, J.
Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Crowder, Capt. John E.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Sanderson, Sir F.


Cuthbert, W. N.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Savory, Prof. D. L.


Darling, Sir W. Y.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Scott, Lord W.


Davidson, Viscountess
Low, A. R. W.
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


De la Bère, R.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Digby, S. Wingfield
MacDonald, Sir M. (Inverness)
Spence, H. R.


Dower, Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.


Drayson, G. B.
McFarlane, C. S.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Drewe, C.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Strauss, Henry (English Universities)


Duthie, W. S.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Studholme, H. G.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)


Erroll, F. J.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)


Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)
Marples, A. E.
Touche, G. C.


Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)
Marsden, Capt. A.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Vane, W. M. F.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Medlicott, Brigadier F.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Mellor, Sir J.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Molson, A. H. E.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Grimston, R. V.
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.



Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)
Major Conant and




Colonel Wheatley.


Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

Orders of the Day — CRIMINAL JUSTICE (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

3.55 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill was introduced in another place, where a considerable number of Amendments were made to points of detail, and it comes to us, therefore, after having already undergone a fair degree of detailed examination. The question of crime in a community, like that of sickness and epidemics, is not one which can be ignored. Society, for its own protection, must deal with it. The study of crime and its treatment is as old as society itself and there is, therefore, a great deal of experience and a long history to guide those who approach the problem in a scientific and humane manner.
In the framing of the Bill we are indebted to the work of quite a number of Scottish bodies. I might mention the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders, of which the Very Rev. Dr. Taylor is the Chairman. The council's report on the Scottish prison system—the last of a series dealing with the treatment of offenders in Scotland—has just been published and is available in the Library. Then there is the Scottish Central Probation Council, over which Lord Keith presides; the Scottish Central After Care Council, over which the Rev. Dr. George MacLeod presides, and the associations of local authorities. The Lord Advocate, the Lord President of the Court of Session and many others have made their contribution to the Bill. We also had the benefit of the discussion by hon. Members during the passage of the 1948 Act for England and Wales, and we recognise that as far as possible it is desirable that the best experience of the three countries should be embodied in our legislation.
In this matter Scotland requires a different approach from England and Wales. We have a differing judicial system and different methods of prosecution and administrative arrangements. Nevertheless, we took advantage of the 1948 Act to abolish whipping in Scotland at the same time as it was being abolished in England

and Wales. In the case of capital punishment, it was desirable that Scotland and England and Wales should act together but, as the House may remember, as a result of the long discussions, this question has been remitted to a Royal Commission and we in Scotland will also await its conclusions.
In presenting such an important Bill, it is appropriate, on Second Reading, that we should examine its principles and purposes. When we come to the Committee stage there will be many matters which we shall desire to discuss in greater detail. In the treatment of crime, society has a double purpose. It has the purpose of protecting itself and its institutions, and, secondly, it has the duty of dealing with the offender in the way which will bring him most good.
From the earliest time, society has sought to protect itself by "putting the fear of death" upon the criminal, and nearly all forms of punishment have been tried to enable society to revenge itself upon the lawbreaker or to deter potential offenders. These have ranged from ridicule to torture and death. Most of us have shuddered at stories of the rack and thumb-screw and, on the other hand, been entertained to learn how the fishmonger who sold bad fish had to walk about with his fish round his neck. We read of drunkards made to walk round in a barrel with their head and arms protruding, and many other forms of ridicule were used as a punishment for minor offences.
Today, society recognises that punishment for the sake of revenge is unworthy sadism. On the other hand, most people still have the feeling that there should be some retribution exacted from those who make others suffer. There are many offences concerning which the public would resent it bitterly if the criminal "got off with it." Parliament, however, has to approach such matters without heat and with clear thought.
The first thing the Bill does is to clear the decks of obsolete penalties. Accordingly it abolishes drawing and quartering, attainder, corruption of blood, escheat or forfeiture for treason and murder, outlawry or fugitation, hard labour—crank and treadmill — which brings back memories of Charles Reade's "It is never too late to mend"—and penal servitude.
Today, as in all social diseases, we approach this problem as one where prevention is better than cure. The first preventive action is, as far as possible, to remove the circumstances which tend to breed crime. The greatest of these was, of course, poverty. It has always been difficult for any normal person to feel that the man who stole a loaf to feed his starving child was in any way a vicious criminal, yet in past times, the guilty conscience of a society where such poverty existed, often resulted in vicious punishment for such an offence. Today society has removed this particular breeding ground for offences. Full employment, by providing remunerative activity, also removes the idleness which was formerly a predisposing factor in breaking the law.
We are still left, however, with environmental conditions which seem to generate mischief, which, in some cases, degenerates into criminal offences. The child who grows up in a congested area with no healthy outlet for his natural energies and spirit of adventure, frequently misdirects his otherwise healthy activity into the field of what is now called juvenile delinquency. We are all disturbed at what appears to be an increase in juvenile delinquency. I have not been able to satisfy myself as to how far this is due to our modern legalistic methods of treating juvenile delinquency. In the old days the policeman frequently dealt with this on the spot, as a parent would—as many hon. Members will know from their own practical experience, but today we insist on more formal treatment of juvenile cases.
If I might illustrate this, I would quote the case of a magistrate of the City of Edinburgh, who had a grocer's shop. One day he was going home from a funeral when he saw a boy up a tree. He gave him certain chastisement with his umbrella until the boy came down and slipped away. The next day when he was serving in his shop in another guise, a man came in and said, "Youngsters are remarkable these days. My boy came to me last night, and asked me if it was legal for a man to hit him with an umbrella while he was up a tree." Children have become legalistic in the matter of discipline though whether this is a more normal way of dealing with the matter is another

point. In the case of juvenile delinquency, parents and society must recognise increases in this form of offence as an indication of their failure to guide youthful energy in its proper direction. While everyone nowadays would resent any suggestion of exploiting youthful labour, it ought to be considered whether some earlier forms of youthful service in leisure hours would not be the most satisfactory way of guiding the expenditure of youthful activity.
In this Bill, we deal with this particular problem by measures to repair damaged moral values and provide social care and guidance. We regard imprisonment of young offenders as the wrong approach. Up till now, between 20 and 30 young people between 14 and 17 have been sentenced each year to prison, while 900 to 1,000 have been gaoled between 17 and 21. We regard prison as the wrong place to help such young people. The Bill proposes what might be described as graded treatment according to the personality of the offender.
Experience has shown the value of the probation system, but this has been used far too little in Scotland. In England between 1945 and 1948, about 28 per cent. of all juvenile delinquents were placed on probation, but only about 14 per cent. in Scotland, yet in the same years, between 80 and 87 per cent. of the offenders who were put on probation in Scotland completed their periods of supervision satisfactorily. We therefore, consider that it is important that probation should be used by the Scottish Courts whenever possible, and in Scotland we place some importance on getting the co-operation of the probationer in his own welfare.
In those cases where probation is not suitable or has failed, the Bill proposes to prohibit the imprisonment of persons under 17 and eventually by Order in Council, to raise this minimum age to 21 as new methods of treatment become available. For those who require not so much training and guidance as to be pulled up sharply and to be made to realise that they've done wrong the Bill proposes the establishment of a new type of institution, which we call a detention centre, to which Courts may commit offenders who are over 14 but still under 21. This will provide strict discipline for periods up to three months.
In those cases where a prolonged period of rehabilitation is necessary, uniform sentences of three years in a Borstal institution will be given. In this case, the progress of the patient will be carefully observed and he will be discharged as soon as the cure is regarded as reasonably permanent. I myself have told the Borstal boys that we were reluctantly giving them hospitality, and what they were in was a moral hospital to get their health back, so far as their behaviour in society was concerned; that as soon as we were satisfied that they were cured out they would go. There is no particular virtue in keeping people merely on theory, and if we can be certain of them then they have got to leave for normal society. Today, the tendency is to try to make the person in such institutions live a normal life so that he has become habituated to work and to living under self-discipline. In all these cases, the courts are to have before them all available information about the background and character of the offender before deciding how to deal with him, and to this end the Bill provides that proper arrangements will be made for his remand and examination.
In accordance with the object of keeping young people out of prison, offenders under 21 who are remanded in custody must be sent either to a local authority remand home or to a State remand centre—a new institution for those over 17, or those under 17 who are unruly. A proportion of offenders have to be dealt with as mental cases, and where necessary they have to be maintained in a suitable institution where society can prevent them doing damage to others or to themselves and enable them to live as useful a life as is possible.
For this reason the Bill gives the court improved powers to send such people for treatment, not as criminals, to appropriate types of mental institution or guardianship. In the case of those who have been charged with grave offences and placed, because of their mental condition, at His Majesty's Pleasure, the archaic description of criminal lunatic is being abolished. We regard it as a wrong description for a person who cannot be convicted, and therefore the Bill proposes that in future such a person will be confined in a State mental hospital under the General Board of Control and no longer brought within the prison system. It seems to us to be a

contradiction to say that a man was not responsible for his actions, and then put him in an institution that implies his guilt. He is either not capable of pleading and not capable of being guilty in the normal sense, or he is a criminal who is subject to conviction.
There are other cases of a marginal type where the persons may not be mentally deficient or insane in the eyes of the law but may be abnormal or subnormal or unbalanced to such a degree that they require treatment designed to enable them to behave in the way which society imposes upon us. To enable such cases to be dealt with, the Bill proposes that the court may put the offender on probation, subject to a condition that he submits to an appropriate form of treatment—either by attending a suitable clinic as an outpatient, or by agreeing to undergo residential treatment.
There are, of course, persistent offenders who cannot be properly treated by these means. Many of them are not mentally abnormal in any technical sense, although they are warped in their attitude to the law. With such cases, after experience has shown that other methods are unsuccessful, courts will be able to deal in two ways. Where it seems likely that prolonged training, rather of the kind at which we aim in Borstal, will rehabilitate the offender, the court may sentence him to a period of corrective training. Where this method is not likely to succeed and where the record of the offender is such as to make it desirable that society should be protected against him, the court may send him to preventive detention. He will of course, be given such training as is practicable, but the primary object will be to keep him, under suitable conditions, away from the temptations which he has shown himself unable to resist.
The object of the Bill in general is to make the punishment fit the criminal rather than the crime. Both as a cure and as an example to others, the punitive element must certainly be retained, not only for the protection of the public but in the interest of the transgressors themselves. The Bill is not the outcome of any weak or sentimental attitude towards the criminal. The treatment of the criminal is a regrettable necessity, but in the treatment of the criminal we have to retain a sense of proportion. Difficult


problems are involved in the provision of prisons, institutions and personnel to supervise the offender. All this is a great drain on the working members of the community, and it would be quite wrong to allow any sentiment to lead us to coddle the criminal to the detriment of the well-doing members of the community.
It is very much like the problem which we face in agriculture. We can expend a certain amount of money trying to develop marginal land, but when the land becomes too poor all the money we spend on it will not recover it to agriculture. In the same way, we may get people of marginal characters, fading into no character at all. It may be that we spend far too much of the country's resources trying to recover what cannot be recovered, and that the same amount of money spent on other persons in the community might produce far better results. The only trouble with the marginal criminal, as distinct from the marginal land, is that we have to keep him in any case. The problem is to make him as useful as possible to society, if he cannot be cured. The offender in most cases must accept responsibility for his actions. Where these are deliberate and hurtful to other members of the community he must accept his medicine.
On the other hand, society accepts in this Bill its responsibilities. The best treatment of crime is its prevention. This will be effected as far as possible by the abolition of known causes, by efficient policing which prevents much crime, and by prompt detection, which is one of the best deterrents. We hope that our education system will increase its influence in creating good standards of citizenship. Public opinion exercises a wholesome restraint on those who offend, and the public themselves, by co-operation with the police, have made and can make a great contribution. As a society we realise that work and well-being make people more law abiding than idleness and poverty and that it is better to have housing and health than prison and penalties.
Society is spending a great amount of money on the provision of healthy environment, with educational outlets for energy, guidance for leisure, and opportunities

for sport and for youthful training. There is a great field here for social work for men and women who are prepared to help children and youth through their training years for manhood. Work, in my view, is the most healthy and most satisfying interest in life. The creation of false interests and unreal values stimulates greed and envy, which frequently lead to wrong behaviour. It is the illusion of selfishness instead of the reality of service which leads to much of what we call crime. Society, however, in our country, is essentially healthy, and with the new approach to the treatment of the offender which is outlined in the Bill I feel sure that progress will be made in eliminating preventible crime from our midst.
It is a far cry to the earliest treatment of crime. We must realise that every now and again, as in Nazi Germany and in other countries even today, the most barbarous punishments seem to be revived, even after all the development of civilisation. Therefore it is a credit to our civilisation and to the standards we have reached that we are in a position to be discussing the treatment of crime in this medicinal and remedial way today. This has almost become part of our national hospital service, up to the degree of person who is a deliberate and vicious violator of other people's liberties. Where crime is the result of mental ill-health it will, in future, be treated as such.
The difficulty remains whether, in the treatment of individuals according to their individual temperaments, there is a limit to the amount of attention which can be given to any individual in the community. The most we can hope to do is to divide individuals into classes and, as far as possible, give to each of those classes the kind of special treatment which might be most beneficial. The Bill will enable our society to go forward towards the better use of its manpower resources and to save men and women who might otherwise have been useless to society.
I remember, when I was attending classes as a youngster, that one of the teachers had had a great experience of Germany. It has always stuck in my mind that he told us what the Germans did with some of their prisoners. They used to take the prisoners out to great


moorlands which they wanted to recover for agriculture. The prisoners had to build the farm huts and sheds and live in them while they gradually recovered the ground for agricultural purposes, turning it over until the place had become a farm. When they had done that, they moved to the next location, and the farmer moved in. In that way the Germans recovered tremendous stretches of land and made them available for agriculture. I often feel that it would be much more useful if people who cannot discipline themselves could be used for constructive work of that kind which would bring a benefit to the country as a whole.
We put forward this Bill, not with the object of mollycoddling the prisoners, but of treating prisoners according to the standards of our society for their wellbeing, in the hope that this class of person will be reduced to the minimum and that society will rise in its general moral behaviour.

4.18 p.m.

Commander Galbraith: I am sure that the House appreciates the wide range of the explanation which the Secretary of State for Scotland has given of the contents and purposes of this most complicated Measure. On this side of the House we do not regard the Bill as controversial in the political sense. We recognise, however, that as between individual Members of the House, apart altogether from political affiliations, there is room for a fairly wide divergence of opinion. In that connection I think it is right for us to keep in mind, as the right hon. Gentleman has told us, that initially the Bill is the result of painstaking work carried out by a number of departmental committees. In particular, it is based on recommendations which have been received from such bodies as the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders, to whose work I should like, with the right hon. Gentleman, to pay my tribute. The Measure also comes to us from another place where it has already been scrutinised fairly closely and where Amendments have been made which are of benefit to the whole Measure.
I am happy to think, as the right hon. Gentleman appeared to be, that in this Bill on a somewhat serious subject there are certain lighter aspects. I observe, for

instance, the ancient sanctions, some of them dating from 1707 and some of a much earlier origin than that, which are being removed from our criminal code. Forfeiture no longer has to follow on the crimes of murder or treason. Forfeiture has never had any very great terrors for me or for a large number of my hon. and right hon. Friends, and since the advent of the present Government with a Chancellor of the Exchequer who by sleight of hand leaves nothing whatsoever in our pockets, not even in the pockets of the most prudent, any element of fear or terror which forfeiture had for us has ceased to be. I am sure that it is because the right hon. Gentleman senses that, owing to the manipulations of his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, forfeiture has lost all its effect, that he has decided to abolish it.

Mr. Woodburn: I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is not contemplating making himself liable for it.

Commander Galbraith: Even if I did, I am afraid that the crime would not result in any very great benefit to the Exchequer. There is also the abolition of what I have always understood to be the somewhat undignified and very painful process of drawing and quartering as part of the penalty for high treason.

Mr. Scollan: That is devaluation.

Commander Galbraith: The Bill also abolishes penal servitude and hard labour, and imprisonment for those under 17 years of age is prohibited. Detention centres are provided for offenders under 21, higher standards are aimed at for probation hostels and homes, and the Bill also provides that remand centres are to be supplied for young persons committed for trial so that they shall no longer have to wait in prison for the date of their trial to come on. I am also glad to see that the qualification for Borstal training is to be widened, that the probation system is to be modified, and that two new types of treatment have been introduced for the benefit of persistent offenders.
I have no doubt at all that many of these provisions are all to the good and bring our criminal code more into line with modern ideas, particularly so in regard to young persons. Many of these provisions


—the right hon. Gentleman alluded to this—such as detention centres, probation homes, remand centres and Borstal training, aim not so much at punishment as at reform, but I was glad to have an assurance from the Secretary of State that, even if that is the case, there is no intention of coddling those who offend against the law.
I hope I shall not be considered a barbarian, but I wish to state a conviction which I hold very firmly indeed, that many of these institutions would be unnecessary and that the country could be saved the expenditure of large sums of money if parents were only instructed about the benefits their children would derive from being thoroughly and soundly spanked on that part of the anatomy which Providence has provided for the purpose, immediately they show signs of disregarding parental authority or acquiring any vicious or bad habits. Not only would the country be saved much money, but at the end of the day many parents might be saved a deal of sorrow. I give that to the House as my experience. For any real misdemeanour nothing is more salutary, at least up to the age of 18, than a good sound caning properly administered—I speak from experience about that also—and I can tell hon. Gentlemen opposite who have not had the benefit of that experience that, while it hurts, it does very little harm. I know of few who cared to have it repeated at too frequent intervals, but I can assure the House that it does encourage towards the paths of virtue.
Be that as it may, the Bill is undoubtedly a further step towards the mitigation of any hardship and harshness which still remains in our penal code. Surely for us to move in that direction is a great act of faith, an act of faith which would not appear to be justified from the trend, if I comprehend it aright, which is revealed in the criminal statistics for our country for 1948, Command Paper 7,708. The figures given in that document show that, comparing 1939 with 1948, there is an increase in crimes known to the police of from 61,000 to 78,000, an increase in crimes against property with violence from 16,000 to 30,000, housebreaking as compared with 1937 is up by 115 per cent.—from 13,781 to

29,732—and the number of persons proceeded against for housebreaking—I think that is probably a fairer figure to take to show the trend—is up by 88.1 per cent.
I have observed that the Government lay claim to every improvement which is made. They lay claim to the fall in the death rate, to the fall in the stillbirth rate and the fall in the maternal and infant mortality rates as being the outcome and result of their good administration. If I am not mistaken, I heard hon. Gentlemen opposite claim the credit for the increase in the birth rate in 1947 as being a great achievement by the present Government. I notice that there has been considerable shyness on that subject since the Report for 1948 was published revealing a fall in the birthrate for that year. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite may be sensitive on that matter, and I leave it there, but the Government simply cannot have it both ways. If they are to claim, without an} just warrant, credit for good trends, they must accept responsibility for had trends, and therefore they must accept the responsibility for any shortcomings that there may be in regard to crimes as revealed by the figures which I have quoted. They can at least take comfort from one of the figures contained in that Report. In the case of drunkenness, there has been a notable decrease since 1939 of no fewer than 10,000 cases in 1948.
The House in general will agree that by far the most serious aspect of the criminal statistics relates to young persons of 17 years of age and under. The number of that category against whom proceedings were taken increased by 2,681 or 15 per cent. in 1948 over 1947. Crimes against the person increased by 52, housebreaking by 710 and theft by 574, and the guilt of young persons was established in no fewer than 14,024 cases as compared with 12,457 in 1947, or an increase over that period of 12 months of no fewer than 1,567. These are very serious figures, and they give us no cause whatsoever to be complacent, particularly when we find that the peak age in relation to theft is between 13 and 15, housebreaking between 13 and 14 and for all crimes committed by young persons, between 13 and 14.
Judging by these figures, there appears to be something very far wrong with the


discipline in many of our homes, and also perhaps in many of our schools, but I am not blaming the teachers for that because it appears to me that for all practical purposes they are prohibited from taking action of a disciplinary nature which would be likely to be effective. However, I do blame the parents, and in that the right hon. Gentleman seems to be in agreement with me.

Mr. Rankin: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman expand a little more a statement he has just made? He stated that teachers were prohibited from taking, within the school or even at times outside the school, the necessary disciplinary action—

Mr. William Ross: One action.

Mr. Rankin: —which they could and should take. Will he explain in what way they are prohibited?

Commander Galbraith: I do not think that teachers have at their disposal methods of disciplining the pupils which are likely to be effective to the full extent I, should like to see. I may be wrong. The hon. Gentleman is welcome to his opinion and no doubt he will develop it when he speaks.

Mr. Rankin: The teacher has at his disposal the very instrument which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has just told us was so effective in his own case.

Commander Galbraith: Yes, but surrounded by a good many safeguards. I sometimes wonder whether, in the light of these figures, there should not be stronger measures of discipline entrusted to teachers though I doubt whether they would welcome that as a body. I do not know that they would care to use them if they had them, but I have no doubt that it would be in the interests of the youth of the country. I mention these facts because, in considering a Bill of this nature, they are worthy of the consideration of the House.
This Bill calls for the provision of a large number of new institutions. That means a lot of new building, and in that connection we must keep our feet firmly on the ground. So I would quote to the House words used by Lord Morrison when speaking for the Government and stating the policy of the Government in

another place. The words used by the noble Lord were these:
… the provisions of this Bill can be brought into force only gradually. Many of the projected reforms depend upon the prevision of new types of institution, and while the national building programme is so congested these reforms must inevitably be delayed.
Since those words were spoken the situation, as we all know, has deteriorated to a large extent, and it seems that the implementation of many of the important provisions of this Bill will be even more protracted than the noble Lord then believed. Indeed, the situation today is such that parts of the Bill are likely to remain a dead letter for a long time. If, however, building of new institutions is altogether out of the question, I hope that will not prevent improvements being made in existing conditions. Indeed I hope they will be the first to receive attention. In that regard I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the Report on Prisons in Scotland, 1939–1948, Cmd. Paper 7747, and also of the Report of the Medical Advisor on Prisons in Scotland published this year. I trust that the unsatisfactory conditions referred to in those documents are receiving and will continue to receive the urgent attention of His Majesty's Government.
While I do not criticise this Bill in principle—I hope I have indicated that I accept it with certain doubts and reservations—I feel that in detail it requires further examination, and to that it will be subjected during the Committee stage. Meantime my right hon. and hon. Friends agree that, as the Bill has no political complexion of a party nature, they will today accord to it an unopposed Second Reading.

4.34 p.m.

Mr. Hubbard: I will pass only one comment on the remark made by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith). I assure him that the form of corrective punishment he received when young was in no way a monopoly of the Opposition. I probably suffered, or benefited, to the same extent except that in view of my proportions I was a much better target than he was.
Of course we all welcome this Criminal Justice Bill. Indeed, for a considerable time I have been convinced that if there were a little more justice there would


probably be far fewer criminals. Perhaps, in a more abstract way, too, if some of us had received more justice in the past we might have been deemed to be criminals. At any rate, we approve of the Bill, particularly of that part which deals with crime amongst young people. Everyone will agree that any suggestion which tends to prevent crime, particularly on the part of young people, is the first concern. I would put prevention first, reform second, and punishment last.
For a considerable period of my public life I have been much concerned about what happens to young children who are alleged to have committed crimes. It is difficult to define the difference between the natural wildness one finds among healthy children and behaviour which is criminal in intent, and I was particularly interested in that part of the Bill which says that the background of the child must be taken into consideration. Often I have seen children removed from their surroundings and put into institutions when the people who ought to have been in institutions were the parents of those children.
Another thing I watched for a long time with great regret is that until now the boy or girl who, because of his bad parents it is felt would be better away from their care, finds himself in the same institution and receiving the same treatment as children who are there because they have done something really bad. That is not a good practice because sometimes the rather wild children have little or no knowledge that they are beginning to be the enemies of society. Sometimes the first indication they have of that is when they reach the old type of remand home. Indeed, I have heard them discussing this question, and one who enters a remand home or an institution is often held in esteem in proportion to the crime he has committed.
I had an interesting experience many years ago when crossing over on a ferry from Tayport to Dundee when a number of boys from the Mars training ship were crossing at the same time. One of them had a great deal to say about why they go there. He informed us that one boy was in detention for having stolen a hen and observed that it was a good job it had not been an ostrich he had stolen or otherwise he would have been dead—

perhaps drawn and quartered, because the law which it is intended to repeal by this Bill was still in operation then. I do not know what the disembowling part would have entailed—

Mr. Scollan: That would have applied to the hen.

Mr. Hubbard: That is what I wanted to know. My worry all along has been that young lads and girls who stray a little off the path between right and wrong often for the first time mix with those who have a definite opinion as to what is right or wrong and who have deliberately set out on a wrong course. I have often heard people say that they are judged by the company they are in, but I can never make up my mind why the good person is influenced by the company of the bad one instead of the bad person being influenced by the company of the good person. To my mind that is all a little confusing.
I had a rather unfortunate experience in trying to help a boy who was doing his best to rehabilitate himself with the very great support of a master from his approved school. It was very difficult for him to be sent back home because of the bad influence of his parents. For that very reason, however, and for that reason alone, be behaved extremely well, until ultimately he discovered that the best way out of his predicament was to commit a crime which would warrant his detention in a Borstal institution, so that after a short period of training he would be able to enlist in one of the Services. I feel that the Bill will put an end to difficulties of that sort. In the past, little or no regard has been paid at certain remand centres to the type of home from which a young person came or to the persons in charge of the remand homes themselves. The fact that these faults are to be remedied is another reason for welcoming the Bill.
There are various matters which cause me anxiety concerning people who find themselves quite unexpectedly in a court of law. A person entering a court of law always expects to get justice, but everyone knows that justice is capable of different interpretations. A person who is brought before the court for the first time may be unfortunate in that his case is badly presented. He might feel that if he could be afforded an


opportunity to have his case re-heard there might be a different result. But if, because of financial difficulties, he cannot afford to do this, and goes to prison for the first time, he suffers under a sense of frustration that he ought not to be there and has had bad treatment in the court. This is one of the reasons why frustration is often closely linked with revenge. A very bad impression is at once created in the young person's mind. He feels he has had a raw deal and at the forefront of his mind is a determination to have some form of revenge at the earliest opportunity. For this reason, therefore, any extension of criminal justice which will make it possible for everyone to have further opportunities in the courts is very desirable.
I am very interested in the question of the young person who is averred to have committed something wrong but is deemed to be suffering from some form of mental disease. Such a person has to be taken to a special mental school for treatment. It is mentioned in the Bill that there are to be fixed periods for Borstal detention. I should like an assurance that when young persons are sent to mental homes of any description there will be regular periodical reviews of the effect upon them of their treatment. There is always the feeling in people's minds that it is much easier to be certified and be sent to a mental institution than to find a way out from such places.
I should like some positive assurance concerning young people, whose minds may have been warped because of conditions under which they have lived, because of lack of parental control or because, perhaps, of an overdose of that corporal punishment from which my hon. and gallant Friend has suffered—and so have I. Probably in our younger days we were struck in the right places, but children are not always struck in the right places. It is for those reasons that young people find themselves in mental homes, and I ask for the assurance that a definite time will be stated for releases from Borstal institutions and that time limits will be imposed for the re-examination of young people sent from the courts to mental homes.
Whenever any new Measure dealing with criminal law is brought before the House we are taking a step forward. Although no benefit is derived by anyone in detaining people too long at the expense of the State, I agree that some form of protection must be afforded to those citizens who try to keep within the law.

4.45 p.m.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Most of us will agree with what the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Hubbard) has been saying, not only in respect of corporal punishment, in which I, with perhaps a beatable area almost equivalent to his, have shared. The matter of treating children and young offenders is one in which everybody ought to be particularly interested. Many of us in this House are parents and we all have our share of these responsibilities. As the hon. Member said, lack of parental responsibility is one of the main causes of juvenile crime, not only here but probably in other countries also. I shall revert later, if I may, to other of the points put forward by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy.
I agree with the general principles which the Bill contains. I agree, too, that on this occasion we do not need to go into great detail. There are, however, various sides of this big question to which I should like to refer. The historical side is interesting and has been mentioned. I am delighted to see several English hon. Members present and as we shall, I hope, hear from them, perhaps I might tell them that the punishment of hanging, drawing and quartering was expressly invented by a King of England for the benefit of a Scottish patriot known as William Wallace. That is something in which they will take either pride or otherwise and to which they will doubtless refer, but it is something which they cannot deny. The only fault of William Wallace was that he fought for the liberty of his country; and that was the result to him, over 600 years ago. Yet in the last 20 years there have been more cases of that or its equivalent than there were 600 years ago. We may not, therefore, have become as civilised as sometimes we think.
We are all agreed that the punishment of offenders is necessary, whether the offences are against individuals or the


community as a whole. We are also agreed, I hope, that the punitive aspect, as the right hon. Gentleman said, must not be allowed to obscure the reformative side. The punitive side is very necessary, but at the same time we must realise that we have a responsibility for people who fall by the way. If we punish them we must at the same time give them every possible opportunity of restoration to decent society, as far, at any rate, as their mental and physical powers will allow them to go.
It is, of course, extraordinarily difficult to lay down any sort of hard and fast rules that all people between 14 and 17, or whatever the ages are, must be treated in this way, and that all those between 17 and 21 must be treated in that way. In those two categories there will be little thugs of 14 and 15, far more deserving of the drastic treatment which those age 21 and 22 will receive, because they have already reached that stage. In this very difficult problem we rely so much on the judgment of those people whose duty it is to decide where and how the boy or girl is to be treated. It is an immense and very difficult responsibility. Any help which we can give in this House by legislation of this kind is a step very much in the right direction.
As has already been said, it is very necessary to guard against false sentimentality on the subject of crime. I do not think there is any doubt that in the minds of many young people the thug is a hero. The chap who does the biggest crime is a bit of a swell. I can remember thinking the same when at school, to be perfectly honest. That produces a difficult feature in dealing with young offenders. There it is a question of the tact and experience of the people who do the job which may make or mar the situation.
The figures in the White Paper referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) give no reason for complacency in Scotland. We have to realise that our prisons are overcrowded, as I believe they are in England and Wales. That is a very clear pointer that something is still very far wrong. Of course we have to allow for the tremendous disturbance, mental, physical and economic, of the war and the aftermath

of that is bound to result in unsettlement and added crime through people being mentally, physically and otherwise disturbed. We can take a little comfort in the hope that this will recede very steadily.
Crimes against the person and against property, with or without violence, are one of the most disturbing features of present crime statistics and in Scotland they show a really alarming rise. In Command Paper 7747, Report on Prisons in Scotland, we find that crimes against the person in 1939 were 1,373 and in 1948 1,480, and that is still going up. Crimes against property, with or without violence, have gone up even more. Crimes against property with violence in 1939 were 1,120 and, in 1948, 2,534. One does not need to go into more detail, but there are indications that this type of crime, unfortunately, is not on the decrease, but on the increase.
Perhaps the saddest, and in some ways the most disheartening feature, is the number of crimes committed by persons under 21. That again brings us back to the question of homes and parental responsibility. In the same document I found that between 1939 and 1948 crimes by persons under 21 have rather more than doubled. That is an unfortunate state of affairs but, I believe, it is pretty general all over Great Britain. I am happy to see that in my own category, between 50 and 60, the figures have dropped substantially. Figures for people of between 50 and 60 dropped from 2,058 in 1939 to 760, I believe, so the older ones are learning a little sense.

Mr. Willis: Surely we cannot take parents from their children for six years and put them in the Forces and then expect them to be as well behaved when they come back.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I agree and I was saying, I thought clearly, that the question of homes—

Mr. Willis: It is a question of war, not of homes.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: But we have to deal with the question of homes. The war is over and the homes remain and this result is being produced. We have to face up to it, whether we like it or not. The figures give something of the


picture of the problem we are up against, and I think this Bill goes several valuable steps forward towards trying to solve it.
I turn now from the prisoners and their problems to the question of the staffs of prisons. From personal experience—let me add hastily, as an inspector of prisons and not as an occupant—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"]—so far anyway—we have in the prison staffs as loyal, conscientious and sympathetic a body of men and women as can be found anywhere in the country. We have to remember that all our reforms and the things about which we are thinking today are dependent on these people. The provisions of this Bill largely depend on the co-operation of this grand body of men and women.
It is not everybody's job to be a prison officer and, of course, there are misfits and sometimes unfortunate results, but there are certainly no more in that service than in any other walk of life and we have to realise that they are doing magnificent work. It is of the greatest importance and our bounden duty to see that the rewards and conditions of these people are commensurate with the immense responsibilities we place on their shoulders because there is no doubt that each Measure, such as this Bill, puts added responsibility on the staffs of prisons and homes who have to administer those Measures. We must not let them down in the matter of rewards.
We have to remember that the staff is still inadequate to deal with the great problem of our prisons and reform homes. I understand that the Prime Minister the other day notified a 5 per cent. cut for all Government Departments and I presume that includes the prison service. No one would deny the necessity for this, but I suggest that it needs to be very carefully watched to see whether a 5 per cent. cut is wise at this time in a service which is already understaffed for efficient running while, possibly, there is some other place where a 10 per cent. cut could be made and the prison service let off the 5 per cent. I know that others in other services will say, "What about my service, it is as important as others," but I think this should be considered and I should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply how the 5 per cent. cut

will affect the provision of staff for these prisons and homes.
We have all to realise that the Civil Service organisation, its rules and methods, must play an enormous part in the running of the prison service of Scotland. I would again pay tribute to the covenanted Civil Service of this country, which I believe to be the best in the world, without exception, hard working, conscientious and a model of probity and impartiality in everything they do. But however good the Civil Service is—and ours is very good indeed—the training and outlook of civil servants are rather more directed towards facts, figures, statistics and files than live human beings. That is inevitable, and it is no reflection on them to say that their training is not primarily for dealing with human beings in active life—and the prison population is one of the most human of all gatherings of human beings.
In all walks of life direct and constant personal touch between those running the show and those who are being run is of the greatest importance. In no case is it more important than when dealing with a collection of broken lives, or lives in danger of being broken, such as those in our prisons and reform homes, It is essential that there should be the closest personal touch between the directing administering body and the actual units administered. Here it is inevitable that the Civil Service mentality is not really trained for the purpose. That, as I say, is in no way casting reflections on their administration as such.
The lack of first-hand experience among civil servants in dealing with types such as the criminal classes, as they are called—I mean the inhabitants of criminal institutions—means that their approach is based rather upon just "bodies" and not upon individual human beings with problems and immortal souls of their own. The set-up in Edinburgh is extremely efficient. The Director of Prisons in Scotland today is a man of the highest calibre, of great character, wide sympathies and great experience in the handling of men, one of the best types of Regular Army officers who could be found. He has done a magnificent job. Unfortunately he is due to retire shortly. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will exercise the greatest possible care in selecting a successor for this tremendously important


job. Without casting any reflection upon the Civil Service, I would urge that it should not be just a matter of promotion by age or seniority to this particular job because it is a job that not everybody can do, however excellent he may be at other things.

Mr. Willis: Another Army officer?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: If he is the best for the job.
I should like to suggest a remedy. It is easy to criticise, but I hope that my criticisms are being taken as purely friendly and constructive ones. Before I point this remedy, may I ask the Solicitor-General for Scotland or whoever is to reply whether he or any of his colleagues have any knowledge of any comparable organisation of the size and type of the prison service in Scotland where the executive body, the men who do the actual running of the prisons, have no representative at the administrative headquarters? Is there any case of that in any comparable organisation? I think not, but I should like an answer to that question, if possible.
That brings me to my suggested remedy, which is a limited remedy but would, I believe, help enormously. What is urgently needed is some form of administrative staff officer—as we should say in the Army A and Q, the Major-General in charge of administration—whose job is direct and constant liaison between the units, in this case the prisons and homes, and the administrative headquarters in Edinburgh. That is of the greatest importance. If that would cost more money I am convinced that a saving could be made somewhere else in that Department which would enable this appointment to be made, a step which would give a greater value for money without increasing the total expenditure.

Mr. Scollan: Does the hon. and gallant Member mean that at the present time there is no such contact?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I was coming to that point. The people in Edinburgh do their utmost to keep in touch with those units; from personal experience I know that they make every possible effort, but the fact is that they are weighed down by the mass of

administrative detail which has to be done in Edinburgh, and which the complex modern systems we invent seem inevitably doomed to carry. They just cannot keep in touch as frequently as it should be done, and as they would like.
I wish to make another brief but important point. Far wider latitude and discretion should be given to governors in what they do within their own prisons. We must realise that the governor is the man on the spot: he knows all the staff, the prisoners and the problems. It is very trying to have to refer constantly, however correctly and well-meaningly, to Edinburgh about something which they could do straight away. If they could take the necessary action in such matters and have loyal backing from Edinburgh it would be a great improvement on the present set-up. I am not suggesting that governors do not now get loyal backing from Edinburgh. I am saying that they should be able to act far more on their own and then refer to Edinburgh for confirmation of their action.

Mr. Scollan: They have no initiative?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Not enough chance for it. We have to realise that in the prison services and in Criminal Justice Bills and all these matters with which we deal in this House we are dealing only with an evil which exists. I am convinced that the real solution of all these problems lies in the re-establishment of high Christian principles in the homes and individual and public lives of the people of our country. Until we achieve that all this will not be of advantage. We are dealing with an existing evil, and as the right hon. Gentleman said, we must get rid of the causes of that evil and then we shall not need to cure it. It is only curable by a reversion to Christian principles.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: For an Englishman to intervene in a Scottish Debate is to carry rashness to the point of folly. It is the first time that I have ever been so venturesome in the years in which I have sat in this House. But there is an organic connection between the prison service in Scotland and that in England, and I have a very direct and intimate relationship with both. It is that which has led me to seek to address the House today. This Bill represents a


further stage in progress from the conception of penology as a punitive thing to the conception of penology as a reformative and curative thing. From that point of view the Bill in general will be welcomed by everyone in the House. It reproduces many of the features of the English Criminal Justice Act, and it is an attempt to keep in step with a new conception of the purpose of detention in prison.
I felicitate the Secretary of State for Scotland on the introduction of the Bill. But there are two points upon which I should like some assurance before I come to the particular matter which I wish to discuss today. Under one Clause of the Bill, dealing with persistent offenders, provision is made for sentences of preventive detention for a term of not less than five or more than 14 years on persons over the age of 30 who are convicted on indictment of a serious offence, and have previously been convicted on at least three occasions of similar offences. That Clause has done more to strike terror into the heart of the criminal classes than any other provision in either the English or the Scottish Measure—the threat of preventive detention, which means that for an offence for which a man would normally receive a sentence of a couple of years he may find himself confronted with a sentence of anything up to 14 years.
I welcome the appearance of this provision in the Bill, but there is just one consequence about which we had better be rather careful. If, instead of imprisonment for two years, sentences of 14 years are imposed on particular occasions, it means that the man concerned has to be in prison for a much longer time. He has not a two years' tenancy but a 14 years' tenancy. The prisons of Britain, including Scotland, are heavily overcrowded. The prison population today is roughly twice what it was in 1938. It was then of the order of 10,000; now it is of the order of 20,000. Those are figures for the whole country. I do not separate the figures for Scotland; I wish to give the general picture. So gross is the overcrowding in many prisons in Britain that prisoners are not confined in separate cells at night, but are sleeping three in a cell.
That has certain potentially very grave consequences, one of which I will not

labour because it will spring to the mind of everybody who knows the problem of homosexuality in prison. The other is a very grave increase in the risk of attack on the individual officer. When an officer goes into a cell where there is one inhabitant inevitably there is a certain element of risk, which may be high or low. But when he goes into a cell where there are three prisoners, who have had the opportunity of consorting together as to what they want to do—if they are in that mood—the risk of possible attack on the officer is very largely increased.
I would urge that in Scotland, as in England, this preventive detention Clause, which I think extremely valuable, must be considered in relation to the total accommodation available in prison. If we are to have more preventive detention sentences then we must deal with a good many other offences not by imprisonment, but by fine, because it is an impossibility to get the added accommodation necessary if we heavily increase the number and duration of prison sentences in Britain.
There is provision made in the Bill for the erection of one additional prison. But what is wanted, not only in Scotland but in England, is the pulling down of nearly all the existing prisons. It is not often that I agree with the Lord President of the Council, but there was one speech he made four or five years ago, when he was at the Home Office, in which he expressed the opinion that the only thing to do with the prisons of Britain was to blow them up. I agree with him. Nearly all of them derive from the early 19th century, and were erected to conform to prison principles which we have long since largely discarded. They are incapable of adaptation to modern conceptions of penology, and they largely frustrate the remedial element which has been developed in our prison system. But as a realist I have to recognise, as we all have to recognise, that the present financial situation in Britain does not permit of the blowing up of the prisons and the erection of more suitable edifices; although some day I hope we shall be able to get round to that.
I come now to the matter about which I particularly wish to speak, and that is the position of the prison staffs. I was grateful for the comments made by the hon. and gallant Member for Perth


(Colonel Gomme-Duncan). It is the case that when we have done with this Bill someone has to administer it; and the people who have to administer it are the staffs of the prisons. We need today a radically different type of officer from what we needed in the past. Every change from the punitive to the remedial conception of imprisonment demands for its application a better type of officer than before.
In the early days the functions of the officers was largely described by their older name. They used to be known as "turnkeys." That just about expressed their function of locking people up and letting them out again. We have passed from the turnkey to the warder, and we have passed from the warder to the officer. The more we carry the reformative and curative element in penology to completion, the higher, better-educated, and psychologically adapted type of officer we need to recruit. That is axiomatic and I do not think anybody would dispute its elementary truth.
The fact is that much of the reformative and remedial character of prison administration is being hampered and frustrated by the lamentable shortage of staff. That shortage of staff creates evil effects all the way round. The risk of attack is increased in proportion to the deficiency in numbers of staff, and that, again, I think everyone will readily appreciate. But the shorter we are of staff the more difficult it becomes to get more, because the effect of the shortage of staff is to require evening and weekend work on a scale which would not otherwise be necessary. The possible recruit compares the irregularities and interuptions of prison life with what he might have in the factory, and the result is that the shorter we are of staff the more difficult it becomes to get more staff. That is the situation today.
Staffs in Scotland and in England are working what is called the "Morrison hour." During the war they voluntarily offered—and I think it is to their credit—to work an extra hour a day in order to enable the existing inadequate staff to be spread, as it were, a little wider. They are still working that "Morrison hour" today. But even though they are working an hour a day longer than their hours as laid down, there is still a very

heavy shortage of staff in both Scotland and England. That complicates every problem of prison administration.
Why is there a shortage of staff? I think there are a number of reasons. First of all, the job itself is not an attractive one. To live permanently in the society of social criminals, or social misfits, in the dark and depressing conditions of a prison is not an attractive thing at the best of times. One can think of 45,000 other careers which one would rather follow than the career of a prison officer. That is one element. The second element is that men cannot depend either on getting away at a regular time of the day or of enjoying their weekends. They live either in the prison or within a given radius of it, and whenever there is a disturbance in the prison they are liable to be called in—at any time, in the middle of the night or whenever the trouble may occur. One finds increasingly that those irregularities in attendance, emphasised, increased, and exaggerated by the shortage, constitute a very serious obstacle to adequate recruitment to the service.
In the olden days, these and other disabilities were overcome, because the prison service offered two elements in conditions of service which exercised a strong attractive power. One element was the permanency of the job. In a world where employment was insecure, when periodic waves of being out of work swept over the country the attractive power of a job which was regular and permanent was very real. When I first went into the Civil Service myself, I was told, "It is poverty, but thank God it is permanent." The element of permanency and security exercised a very strong attractive power. But with full employment, when, if a man leaves one job he can go to the next-door factory and get another, the attractive power of that element of permanency has very largely disappeared. That, I am certain, is one of the reasons why we are failing to attract a sufficient number of the required type of men.
The other attractive feature was the pension. At the age of 55 or thereafter a man could go on pension. In the world of the 19th century, when no provision was made for old age, before the Old Age Pension came into operation or anything of that kind, the assurance of a pension at the end of a man's working life, was


a very attractive thing. It had a strong power of drawing recruits into the service. But the Social Services, so to speak, have caught up with what were the special provisions made in the public service. In principle today every workman may look forward to receiving a pension, and so that pension element in the prison conditions of service does not exercise the same attractive power as it used to do in the days gone by. The upshot is that we are grossly understaffed in the prisons both in Scotland and in England. The decision to apply a two-shift system taken years ago has been inhibited because of the shortage of staff. Every governor and every prison officer I have talked to agrees that this lies at the root of the prison problem.
I know that these are not propitious times in which to talk about wage increases, but I affirm that we must do something here, otherwise the prison administration is in danger of breaking down. I do not want to be an alarmist upon that, but that is the case. If we had more than one serious outbreak in British prisons we should be hard put to it to maintain order. It is as bad as that. If there were a major Dartmoor disturbance which involved concentrating warders from other prisons, leaving them still further denuded, there would be every possibility of a widespread breakdown in the prison service, which none of us wants to see.
Even at the risk of appearing to propagate wage increases at a time when the Government frown on them, I ask them to remember that in their own wages policy they made an exception in the case of what they called the "undermanned industries." They recognised that it might be necessary to offer added attractions in the case of industries which were manifestly undermanned, and for which the number of new recruits required could not be obtained.
I do not ask the Secretary of State for Scotland for any pledges on this matter. He knows, and I know, that the Scottish service and the English service are related here, and he can no more act without the Home Office than the Home Office can act without him in dealing with the Scottish side of the prison service. But I ask him to consider gravely this fundamental issue of the shortage of staff. I

ask him to consider with his colleague at the Home Office what can be done to overcome it. I think that he will find that it boils down to offering greater monetary attractions to draw men.
If a man has to choose between going into a factory, with the knowledge that he has done for the day at five every evening, and that the rest of his time is his own, with the knowledge that he will have Saturday and Sunday off each week which he can spend with his wife and family—if he has to choose between that and going into the prison service, where he will get no more money than the factory worker, but will have his evenings interrupted, his weekend peace destroyed, and will be denied the liberty to move about freely, as the police are—certain restrictions are placed upon their social movements—then the odds are about a dozen to one that he will choose the factory rather than the prison.
If we are to overcome the difficulty we must face up to the problem of wages in the service. I conclude by asking the Secretary of State for Scotland to consult with the Home Secretary and, with him, to work out, in conjunction with the unions concerned, scales of pay which will overcome what is at present the biggest liability in the whole of the prison service—the failure to attract and retain an adequate number of the required type of officer.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Rankin: I am sure that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) will forgive me if I do not follow him in the line that he took. I lack that intimate and close acquaintance with prisons and prison life which evidently he has obtained. I want to refer to the use which has been made of the statistics quoted during this Debate by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) and the hon. and gallant Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan). They pointed out, appropriately, that the statistics showed that crime was on the increase. We all recognise that as a very serious factor in our discussion. I notice, however, that that increase is in progress while all the implements of punishment still remain. This shows, I think, that the fear of punishment itself, is not a deterrent to the commission of crime.
While quotations were being made from these statistics my mind went back to a school in Warsaw in which I stood three years ago. If I remember aright, the hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley (Major Conant) was with me in that school. Forty boys were gathered there, the teacher told us, from almost all parts of Poland—from the east and the west and from Warsaw itself. Every one of them had been deprived not only of father but of mother for six years. They did not even know what a home was. They were the juvenile scourings of Poland as a result of war. The teacher told us that they presented the toughest possible problem that the teaching profession in Warsaw faced after the war.
A similar type of problem but not so intense was created in this country as a result of the war, and it still persists. A few weeks ago I saw a dyke built by a railway company which had been almost torn to pieces by the boys who live in part of the constituency represented by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok. Of course, if the police had caught them they would have been tried at court and sentenced as criminals. They had torn down something and yet they were little products of a world which had been bombed and blasted and torn to pieces for six years by adults who doled out amongst themselves medals for creating destruction on an infinitely greater scale than that for which these boys would have been treated as criminals. That spirit is still extant. It is no use saying that the younger generation can be kept apart from this destructive mind which infests society today. If we want to see a reformation in the conduct of youth we ourselves must apply in our lives some of those Christian principles to which the hon. and gallant Member for Perth referred.
There is a further point about the use of these statistics. I invite the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok to take the statistics for Glasgow and to divide them as they apply to Pollokshields and as they apply to my Division. In that analysis, I am sure he will find the effect of the different environment that obtains in my Division, compared with that which obtains in Pollokshields in his own Division. It is no use taking the total

statistics; we have to analyse them, and, when we come to analyse them, we see what a tremendous effect environment has in shaping the mind of the child. I take up the point of domestic environment which has been referred to by hon. Members opposite in the suggestion that some of this delinquency is due to lack of parental responsibility. I do not disagree with that, but I would press the matter a little more closely. I would not say that it was so much the lack of parental responsibility as the lack of parental affection. Every child born into this land needs to be loved, and, where love of the child is lacking in the parent or parents, then that child is on the way to crime. I have seen that in application, and I want my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to keep that in mind when he comes to the curative process so far as child delinquency is concerned.
In Scotland, we have two different types of treatment concerning these young criminals, and I have seen both of them in operation. I have stood in a school—none of these places should be called schools—on the outskirts of Glasgow where the boys and girls were sentenced to a "stretch," as they called it, in the school. They were being treated in exactly the same way as they would have been treated had they been in a school in the city itself, and that, to begin with, is wrong, because if we put these boys into schools and seek to apply to them the regulations of the ordinary school, then the discipline automatically becomes harsher. It cannot be avoided; with every fracture of the regulations, the discipline becomes harsher still.
I have stood in another place in the city of Glasgow, and I mention this because any hon. Member of this House who cares to go there and see for himself will be welcomed. I refer to Lennox Castle Institute. There, we have an entire absence of punishment. The headmaster of that school plays the part of father and mother to every one of these boys and girls. He plays that part in order to substitute in their lives at Lennox Castle that essential affection of which they were deprived in their domestic life, and the difference in the results in the two schools has to be seen to be believed. In the one, there is no punishment; in the other, there is punishment. In the


one to which I first referred, all the curative purpose is being destroyed by the method employed; in the other, where punishment is lacking, the school is working successfully, and, in most cases, the boys and girls are going out to be a credit to their city and their country.

Mr. Scollan: Will my hon. Friend give way? He raises a very important point on the correction of adolescents, and I would like to ask his opinion on an experience which I actually had, and which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) also knows about, in a reformatory school in Paisley. The headmaster there adopted the process which has been applied by the headmaster of Lennox Castle. He had a number of strong healthy boys and he cut out corporal punishment. One day, one of the boys went out of the school—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): The hon. Gentleman should make his interruption quite shortly.

Mr. Scollan: I want my hon. Friend's explanation of this applied principle. One of these boys went to the Provost of the town and passed a slip of paper to him, telling him that the headmaster of the school wanted £5 change. The Provost handed him the £5, and the boy put the slip of paper in his pocket and ran off, locking the door on the outside and taking the key with him.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry, but if the hon. Gentleman cannot ask his question quite shortly and in the form of an interruption, I cannot allow him to go on.

Mr. Rankin: I have been very generous in the opportunity which I was giving to my hon. Friend, but, in view of the fact that I thought you were ruling him out of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, owing to the length of his interruption, I rose to resume my speech. If you are prepared to permit it, I am perfectly prepared to give way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Mr. Scollan) understands the difference between an interruption and a speech he may now complete his interruption.

Mr. Scollan: Thank you. Mr. Deputy-Speaker. What happened? Immediately

the matter was reported to the headmaster of the school, he called all the boys together, and when he explained to them what the boy had done, these young reformed country hooligans shouted "Hooray." What does my hon. Friend call that?

Mr. Rankin: It must be obvious to the House that to cite a particular fracture of the regulations which occurred in that system is misleading. This is a system which I know is working well, because I have worked it myself for years, and in all the years in which I have actually worked it I have never had a single example of an incident such as has just been described by my hon. Friend. It may be true—

Mr. Scollan: It is true.

Mr. Rankin: We have exceptions to every rule, and even my hon. Friend very often proves himself to be an exception rather difficult at times to deal with. Perhaps I have gone too fully into certain points raised in the Debate, and have strayed further than was my intention.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his speech this afternoon, not merely because of its content, but because of the progressive background which illuminated the whole of it. I believe there will be little disagreement on either side of the House with what I regard as the three main principles of the Bill. My right hon. Friend, I believe, said that there were two principles, but I would say that there were three. First of all there is the protection of society, which is our business; secondly, the prevention of crime, which is also our business; and, thirdly, associated with it, the treatment of the criminal.
The Bill can be further welcomed because it proves that we now recognise in our legislation that the imposing of a sentence, although it may finish the legal aspect of a crime, does not end our responsibility to the individual; that when an individual is sentenced to a period of detention we have only dismissed the legal aspect, and that beyond that there lies a great field of problems—intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical—that still have to be tackled. I welcome this Bill tonight because I believe it is a progressive attempt to face up to those problems.
In Committee we shall have the opportunity to investigate a little more closely some of the things that have been said today because I heard figures given and they do not tally with some of my figures. That matter I will leave for future exploration on the Committee stage. With regard to the probation system, we welcome its extension to the 21s. But if we can apply probation to the 21s, how are we going to refuse to apply it to the 22s?

Mr. Benson: The Bill does that.

Mr. Rankin: Probation is generally applied, so far as the juvenile and the adolescent are concerned, but in Scotland today probation is applied to only .5 per cent. of cases of adults. I am sure the Bill is welcomed because it gives us the opportunity of extending the application of that probation on the adult side as widely as it is being applied today on the adolescent and juvenile side. In conclusion, I wish to say that I welcome the Bill because I believe it is framed on broad, progressive lines that will be of help in creating a new social atmosphere and a fresher approach to the problem of crime and punishment.

5.44 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Each speaker today has analysed his reactions to the introduction of this Bill, and I confess that, to a large extent, mine do not agree with most of the speeches to which we have listened. When the Bill was introduced last Session, many of us saw in it opportunities and possibilities for great and very necessary advances in our Scottish criminal system; but, in view of what has happened since, and what the Government have disclosed to us regarding the gravity of our position, it seems to me almost cynical, and certainly somewhat fatuous, to be discussing the hostels, the centres and the homes envisaged in the Bill. If, indeed our financial and economic position is so grave and so grim—as many of us believe it to be—all these splendid and admittedly necessary institutions are merely castles in the air, and will certainly never become facts, at any rate in our time. Will there be the money even to build them, and, once built, will there be the money to run

them? I should like whoever is to wind up for the Government to tell us within what reasonable period we may expect any of the basic plans outlined in this Bill to be put into effect.
However, since it has been decided to debate the Bill and to occupy Parliamentary time in doing so, let us examine it in a spirit of hope and determination, and, indeed, prayer, that it will one day be a living and working entity, and that we shall see the benefits which the Bill proposes enjoyed by our people. Happily, it deals with a subject concerning which there is no ideological clash and on which no party venom or argument need arise. As hon. Members will recall, it is of mixed parentage. The first time that a Bill dealing with this subject—on which the present Bill is largely based—was introduced was in 1938, and it was presented to the House by a Tory Home Secretary. It had to be dropped in 1939 owing to the war, and then the English Bill was reintroduced by a Socialist Home Secretary in 1947. Now we have the Scottish child to deal with our peculiarly Scottish problems in 1949.
There are two specific reasons why I welcome this Bill. They are that it clarifies the law and makes the task of our judges easier. I suppose there are many hon. Members who as young men meditated on the career they would like to follow, and many no doubt thought of the law. They saw themselves defending the weak and innocent—a sort of St. George slaying the prosecuting dragon—and equally, no doubt, many looked forward to the final reward of their efforts and to the possibility of being created a judge. I imagine that in most cases the prospect appalled them and that the true and revealing statement which, I understand, has been used by many eminent judges—"There but for the grace of God go I"—caused them to back away from their ambition and to choose some other job which would not demand so much moral courage.
A judge has fearsome responsibilities. He has to have great wisdom, tolerance, experience and judgment, holding as he does the careers, if not actually the lives, of his fellows in his hands. It must be a great source of comfort and consolation to our judges, and also, I think, one of the proudest parts of our Constitution, that they are, or should be, immune from


the criticism, animus or even the support of the Executive. That is one of the reasons why I feel I must mention that I, like many other Members, was shocked at the language of the criticism used by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. and gallant Gentleman really must concentrate a good deal more on the general principles in this Bill and not go so wide as he is going.

Sir T. Moore: While, of course, accepting your Ruling, I should like to point out that we are discussing a Criminal Justice Bill, and judges are—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is a Criminal Justice Bill as it might apply to Scotland some day. It has nothing to do with colonial judges or the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Sir T. Moore: I hope you will forgive me for putting one more point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It seemed to me that when I was referring to the protection which our judges have because of their freedom from criticism by the Executive—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I was listening to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks when he was talking about that, and I thought that he was getting rather wide of the contents of this Bill.

Sir T. Moore: Then I shall leave the Under-Secretary to his own rather stupid remarks.
Having tried to analyse the responsibilities of the judge, I ask: what must guide him in giving punishment? Is it to be retribution or reformation? Whatever course he adopts, what effect may his punishment have on the weaker, greedier and more anti-social elements among us who may be falling or likely to fall into crime? There are other factors which are involved. A judge must aim chiefly at interpreting the decisions of Parliament—I will add, heaven help him sometimes when we think of some of the decisions we reach. Therefore, I think this Bill, on which I congratulate the Lord Advocate and the Under-Secretary of State, has succeeded in translating the wishes of Parliament more clearly than any Bill which has been before us for a considerable time. It not only retains

provisions for punishment but it is largely reformative in its intentions and purpose. It has its defects, of course, but its authors are human, as I am sure both of them will agree. All the same, I welcome it for the honesty and humanity with which it seeks to make the law suitable to our progress in civilised thought and feeling.
Speaking for myself, I would mention a few of its particularly attractive features for a start. As has been mentioned already, it abolishes penal servitude with that barbarous ticket-of-leave system which seemed to me as if the law was pursuing a devilish vendetta against the victim once he had completed his imprisonment and paid his penalty. I have seen cases of that ticket-of-leave system which has ruined family life, crushed hopes of a normal social life and destroyed the possibility of success in industrial life. One of the biggest achievements of this Bill is the abolition of that system. Mention has also been made of the abolition of the somewhat odd punishment of drawing and quartering in addition to hanging. This process has always seemed to me slightly redundant and certainly somewhat sadistic, at the same time.
I am sure we all specially welcome the treatment of the juvenile offenders in our community. The creation of these remand centres where young people will no longer be subject to vitiating contacts with hardened criminals is possibly one of the second important achievements in the Bill. I would also like to say a word about the atmosphere in these centres and homes. This is one of the most important things which will have to be dealt with. Young people are very impressionable and are very malleable. Indeed, that is possibly why they get to those homes. Friendliness, understanding and sympathy will help, but repulsion and condescention never will. We are all happy and relieved that those whose minds are temporarily or permanently disturbed will receive more humane and intelligent care and attention.
While giving the Bill a warm welcome, I must register one or two protests about its defects. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan) has said, crime is increasing both in Scotland and in England, and indeed, even in my own constituency—despite my example, as


hon. Members would no doubt like to interject. It was exactly the same after the First World War but not quite to the same extent. As the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) has said, wars inevitably have such repercussions. The loosening of moral standards, the weakening of home controls and the cheapening of life generally all lead to the same end.

Mr. Rankin: I did not use the word "inevitably."

Sir T. Moore: Well, I use the word.

Mr. Rankin: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is putting into my mouth a word which I did not use. I do not wonder at these things happening, but I will not say that they are inevitable.

Sir T. Moore: I accept the hon. Gentleman's regret for not using the word, but I have used it, so we are all square. We have also a large number of deserters—an almost insoluble problem—wandering round our cities and countryside homeless, lawless, foodless and very often hopeless. It is easy to understand why these criminal tendencies seem to be sweeping our island.
I am now on a note of criticism. I feel it is a particularly inappropriate time to abolish any possibility of applying corporal punishment. I know, of course, that in Scotland it has become almost an obsolete weapon in the hands of our judges, but when the English Bill was being discussed last year in another place the Lord Chief Justice said that it was a good weapon to have in reserve for those whose depravity rendered them immune to any other form of punishment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman advocate the reintroduction of a penalty which has not been used in Scotland for 300 years?

Sir T. Moore: I am using as my argument what the Lord Chief Justice said in another place, that it was a good weapon to have in reserve. I think some hon. Members may recall the case of a mother swan which, while hatching her future little family, was stoned to death by some young hooligans. They were charged. What happened? They were fined 5s., not for killing the swan but for

stealing the eggs. What ridiculous nonsense. Would it not have been far better, instead of fining them 5s., to have put them across the knee of some well padded housewife and let them have it where it hurts most? Only by bringing home pain and suffering to those who inflict it shall we get rid of that kind of reckless, needless and useless cruelty of which those young lads were guilty.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. John Wheatley): Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman now suggesting that the abolition of whipping, which was carried through by Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, should be repealed? Is that his proposition?

Sir T. Moore: Yes. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been listening to what I said he would have remembered that I said I think it is a great pity that that weapon, which the Lord Chief Justice thought should be held in reserve, cannot be made available for such exceptional cases of gross cruelty as that disclosed in the case I have just mentioned.

The Lord Advocate: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman know how many cases there were in the 25 years prior to 1948 in which the use of that form of punishment was invoked by the Scottish courts?

Sir T. Moore: I do not know, but I am willing to look it up if the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants me to do so. Is it in the Command Paper?

The Lord Advocate: There were two cases in 25 years.

Sir T. Moore: That is very comforting news, and I hope the news will be even better in the next 25 years, but I do not think it in any way affects my argument. I am referring to the principle concerned.
There is one point I should like the right hon. Gentleman to consider. Could not something be done to change the name Borstal? That name has a very sinister significance not only to the young inmates themselves but to all their friends and relations. When the English Bill was being discussed this was mentioned. Could they not be called say Paterson Homes in memory of that great Scottish reformer? It would be a very appropriate name and it would do away with something that stinks in the minds and


thoughts of all these unhappy young people and their parents.
These are mostly points which can be raised and possibly dealt with in Committee, but I think the Bill is a good skeleton. It is well designed, it is strong and carefully put together, and if it is clothed with wise administration and sympathetic handling from St. Andrews House and by the prison governors and the superintendents of the various homes and remand centres, I believe it will become, what we all hope it will become when it is finally brought into operation, a pronounced and lasting success.
I have already referred to the fact that capital expenditure has been suspended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and even further restrictions are threatened. That, of course, immediately brings one back to the question, when can we expect all these advantages to be at the disposal of Scotland? When is our criminal system to be reformed on the lines laid down in the Bill? How long shall we have to wait? Can the right hon. Gentleman give some indication? Mention has been made of those who fall by the way, of our responsibility for restoring manhood or womanhood to many who are in danger of losing it and of building a more honourable, more honest and self-reliant community. Yet, with all this skeleton, this framework, on which can be built such a splendid edifice, we are left in the dark as to when we may look forward to the machine being introduced. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us some hope that we may expect, at any rate in our time, to see the Bill made a working Measure for the betterment of our community as a whole.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. Benson: It must be almost unprecedented for two English hon. Members to dare to speak on a Scottish day.

Mr. Scollan: It is just like their cheek.

Mr. Benson: When I remember the havoc that hon. Members from over the Border, such as the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), attempted to wreak upon an English Criminal Justice Bill, I hope Scottish hon. Members will take my intervention in the spirit in which it is intended—that is, of pure retributive justice. This Bill has been commended by the Secretary

of State and it has been blessed by every hon. and right hon. Member who has spoken in this Debate today. I do not want to strike a jarring note, but I suggest that if I were to put forward the thesis that this is a very bad Bill and that the bulk of it ought to be withdrawn in Committee, then the Lord Advocate could not produce a single shred of evidence to show that I was wrong. That is because this Bill, apart from the purely administrative Clauses, is based entirely upon guesswork and nothing else. I am glad to note that the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) agrees with me in that; he himself said it was an act of faith. If I understand the word "faith" it means a belief for which one has no adequate grounds.
This Bill is undoubtedly an act of faith and I challenge the Lord Advocate to produce a shred of concrete evidence to support any one of the new proposals in it. He cannot do so. If he took up my challenge all that he could produce would be the opinions of his advisers. He can produce nothing else. He would say that this Bill is more or less a departmental Bill; it is based upon the experience and the opinions of those people who know most about the matter—Borstal governors, our prison commissioners and those who are working the machine. That is perfectly true. That is what it is based upon, and I suggest that their opinions are based upon guesswork and nothing else for the simple reason that they have no body of carefully collected and carefully correlated facts upon which to go. Their only basis, therefore, is guesswork.
There are many Clauses in this Bill, but I want to take as proof of what I am saying simply the Clause which abolishes the two-year probation sentence. I am quite prepared to admit that to have two different types of probation of sentence is bad and to have one sentence only is better, but why has three years been chosen and not two years? Are there any grounds for it? Has a careful analysis been taken of the effect of the two-year sentence by comparison with the three-year sentence. Have follow-ups been made in some hundreds of cases of boys who received two or three years to find which gives the better result? Not a bit of it. The decision to abolish the two-year sentence instead of the three-year


sentence is based upon opinion, and very largely the opinion of Borstal governors who have to run the Borstal system.
The validity of this decision depends on the value of the opinion of Borstal governors and on nothing else. This is a rather important matter, because the value of the opinions that Borstal governors hold not only indicates how completely guesswork is the basis of this Bill but also throws a good deal of light on the power of the courts to make intelligent use of the increased power of sentence which this Bill gives them. I have met a large number of Borstal governors and I have invariably asked them one question. I have said, "When a boy has been with you for about 18 months you have to make up your mind as to what is his possible course of conduct if he is released. You have to decide whether he is likely to go straight or whether he is likely to go wrong. What percentage of correct estimates do you make?" The first Borstal governor I asked said, "Well, what with the number of boys who go wrong who ought to go right and the number of boys who go right who ought to go wrong, I do not think it is more than 50–50."
"In other words," I said to him, "your opinion as to the result of Borstal training would be no more accurate if you tossed up a penny? It is pure guesswork?" And he said, "Yes." As I say, I have asked that question of a very large number of Borstal governors, and I have not yet found one who is prepared to claim that his successes were better than 60 to 40, which is very little better than guesswork. If that is the value of the opinion of Borstal governors, then I say this decision to abolish the two-year instead of the three-year is based upon something which is guesswork and nothing more.
It also throws a very great deal of light on to the working of our courts. The Secretary of State mentioned that under this Bill additional data would be before the courts in order to enable them to make their judgments, in order that they may give wiser sentences. The purpose of the court is, of course, to choose that sentence which is most likely to alter the conduct of the delinquent. How much

information have the courts before them as compared with the Borstal governors? The court sees the delinquent for an hour, for a day, possibly for two days—not longer. It has a certain amount of information which is collected by the police and probation officers. Compare that amount of information with the amount the Borstal governor has when he is making the assessment just before the boy comes out. I speak now of English conditions.
When the boy is sentenced to Borstal in this country the first thing that happens is that he goes to Latchmere House Allocation Centre, and there for six weeks he is turned inside out; he is vetted and tested from every possible, conceivable angle. He is checked up by experts, psychologically if necessary, and then a very comprehensive dossier is sent along with him to the chosen Borstal, which is, of course, at the disposal of the Borstal governor. The Borstal governor then lives with him for 18 months, and it is his duty to get to know the lad. With all that detailed information, with that 18 months' experience of the lad, what is the value of the opinion of the Borstal governor? I have already told what is the opinion of the Borstal governors I have asked as to their chances of making an assessment of the effect of that Borstal sentence.
But there is one very great difference between the court and the Borstal governor. The latter is making an assessment after the sentence has been served. That is an enormous advantage. The court is making an assessment on infinitely less information and experience of the lad, before the sentence is served. Is it suggested that the court has better chances of being right, of assessing the type of sentence that ought to be passed? To do that it has to assess, with the Borstal governor, of course, the effect of the sentence.
The basis of the sentence of the court is guesswork, just as the basis of the assessment of the Borstal governor is guesswork. As soon as guilt has been found—and up to that point no one can criticise our judicial system—but as soon as guilt has been found we get away from the hard, rigid, logical approach to guesswork and emotion. The Prison Commissioners are just as much in the dark in the handling of delinquents as the courts are in passing sentence, because


there is no correlated body of knowledge to help them to form a rational, intellectual judgment. As I say, I challenge the Lord Advocate to produce one shred of rational evidence, convincing evidence, for a single alteration in the law—apart from administrative alterations—in the Clauses of this Bill.
There is one Clause which justifies the Bill up to the hilt. It is not even a Clause. It is a subsection, and that is Clause 70 (3 f) which gives the Secretary of State power to spend money upon research into the causes and into the treatment of delinquents.

Mr. Willis: At a cost of £1,000 a year.

Mr. Benson: We have not any limitation in our English Measure. But let me point out that if you in Scotland spend £1,000 a year it is £1,000 more than you have ever spent before. Fortunately, we have some very clear guidance as to the line along which research must go. For many years now—for nearly 30 years—research has been going on in the United States of America connected with the name of Sheldon Glueck, of Columbia University, and there has also been parallel research by Healey and Bonner, which shows quite conclusively that it is possible to get away from the basis of guesswork, upon which our penal system is based, and to apply what I may call in broad terms the scientific method.
I am not going to attempt to explain what these American researchers have discovered, or the results of their work. It is far too complicated. However, they have shown that we can apply a scientific method of penology, and hon. Members will find the Gluecks' works in our own Library—though I warn them they are stiff going.
The tragedy is that nothing has been done in this country or in Scotland of a similar character. The research work involved is a matter of years. However, as I say, the work that has been done in America is a pointer. We know the line along which we can go, and if the Secretary of State of Scotland in Scotland will spend his miserable £1,000 a year upon investigation and upon research, and if the Home Secretary in England will spend the—fortunately unlimited—sums that he can spend on research,

then, though he will not be able to spend much because we have not the researchers, we shall be able to get away from the fantastic situation that we base the whole of our treatment of delinquents, from the time that they are found guilt until after the serving of the sentence,, and their release, upon nothing but ignorant and uninformed guesswork.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. McFarlane: When I first came to consider this Bill, in the brief study which I was able to give to it, I concluded that this was a field best left to those experienced in criminal law or to those who had devoted a lifetime of interest to penal reform. I am certain that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) is one of those. I do not think that he will expect me to follow him into the profundities of penal reform. On the contrary, my approach is entirely that of a layman who is deeply concerned, as we all are both in and out of this House, with the results and consequences of such a Bill as this.
We are concerned to ensure that the effectiveness of the law is not impaired, and we have an acute anxiety that the community is afforded the maximum protection. The hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin), in speaking of the views that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollak (Commander Galbraith) expressed on the serious increase in crime, said that was because we had, if I express him correctly, still a very large measure of punishment in this field. The Secretary of State for Scotland also spoke of this Bill as being a new approach. I think that, from my reading of it, the Bill very largely codifies methods, treatments, and practices which have been in existence and growing gradually for many decades—that retribution and punishment should be increasingly disregarded and ameliorative treatment should take its place, as has been practised very largely in this country in all our institutions and in all our methods for a very large number of years.
I think that it must be agreed that this Bill codifies that position and elaborates it very much on the same lines as those which have been followed in the past. It certainly establishes much more elaborate


machinery, but the general framework of probation, Borstal, remand and prison reform remain in the Bill largely on the lines which we have been progressively developing over a great number of years. The preponderating emphasis has undoubtedly been upon the treatment of the young offender. I think that I am right in saying that the ultimate ideal of penal reform is the correction and reformation of youth, so that we can secure an ever-diminishing class of habitual and hardened criminals. I, like all Members on both sides of the House, welcome the Bill for the contribution which it makes towards that end.
I regret, as so many hon. Members have done, the physical limitations of the times in which we live, and I do this specially with a view to the grievous conditions of the mentally defective and the insane. It is notorious in Scotland, more especially as a result of recent researches which have been conducted in my own part of the country, that there is an utter and complete inadequacy of even elementary accommodation for those who are so deplorably afflicted.
If I welcome this Bill, I must confess with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok that I recognise a very disquieting background. Evidence has been given of the growth of serious crime and the growing number of the prison population. I notice that in the very full report of the Commissioners for the English Prisons that they state:
In 1948 the daily average population was 19,765: in July of that year it reached 20,000, and although it has since remained stable at about that level, there is reason to believe that it may yet go higher. Populations of this order have not been known since 1911.
Many Members in this Debate, on the broad lines on which it has been approached, have tried to account for this circumstance by the aftermath of War, and lack of parental control. There is undoubtedly a great deal of point and value in those observations, but I would say that we have enjoyed—if I can put it in that way—a period of full employment and relative economic stability, and it certainly must be a matter of acute anxiety to every one of us, if we enter more difficult and uncertain times in the economic sense, what the consequence will be on the criminal statistics. I venture to suggest that the important

procedure in this Bill must undoubtedly lie in the Committee stage and that Members of this House will have to give full recognition to some very unpalatable facts.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield spoke of guesswork in the matter of determining the value of results. Probation has long been tried in this country. We have had probation for about 40 years, and I recognise, what was new to me, that as the Secretary of State said, we had not used probation in Scotland as largely as it had been used in England. I should like to point out some figures in the report of the prison statistics which are to me an exceedingly disquieting reflection on all the effort that has been made of an ameliorative and remedial type. On page 35, in reference to previous convictions of those who enter Borstal, it is pointed out that of a total of 2,051, only 53 had no previous convictions, and for the rest, 268 had one conviction, 416 two convictions, 1,031, three to five convictions, 277, six to ten convictions, and six had above ten convictions.
When we consider the effort that has been lavished, wisely. I think, upon juvenile delinquency, it is a very serious reflection that that is the only evidence that we can afford at the moment of its comparative success, and that is exceedingly disquieting. I have a very limited experience of probation, but in my own little world I have come up against it in business and I have found this great weakness in its administration in Scotland, that invariably the culprit thinks that he is being let off. There is no doubt about that. When he is put on probation he seems to associate that with a vindication of his innocence and acts accordingly. I think that when we come in Committee to these new proposals we shall have to study from this point of view the retention centres which the Secretary of State associated with the introduction of sharp discipline. We shall certainly have to study this matter with very serious scrutiny, always recollecting this unfortunate and melancholy background.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield spoke of Borstal. Again I regret that so far as Scottish statistics are concerned, there is a certain inadequacy. When we turn to the English statistics we find that, while the Commissioners say


that only a very thorough and complete examination of reconvictions and the actual method of assessment can be conclusive, they also say it is clear that only a little more than half do not come back again on reconviction. That again is a matter for reflection as to the success of the Borstal system. In these matters, expressing my own view with the utmost sincerity, I would say that what perplexes the ordinary citizen is the growing liberality of treatment—although we do not dispute its value over all these years—and the disappointing results. It is to that theme that the House must address itself on this Criminal Justice Bill, and I think we must always have in the background the idea that anything of a restraining or punitive nature must be such that those who suffer a period of detention resolve never to come back into such an institution.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: The hon. Member for the Camlachie (Mr. McFarlane) struck the right note when he drew attention to the need for properly balancing the factors that must enter into our considerations when framing a Criminal Jusice Bill. We must take into consideration the very natural fears of the general public, who may feel that people who are in essence enemies of the public are being treated far too lightly. At the same time, there must be set against the possibility of reform the fact that the punishment may be far too severe. I think that on the whole this Bill balances those factors very well, and the slight change of emphasis towards reformation and insistence on making an effort to reclaim, particularly young lads, is one that is well worth while.
The opposition to the Bill that was voiced by my intrepid English friend—

Mr. Benson: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not misrepresent me. I did not oppose the Bill. I did not say that it was a bad Bill. I said there was no evidence that it was a good Bill. My guess is that it is a good Bill; but it is only a guess.

Mr. Ross: I am beginning to realise more and more how true is the Scottish appreciation of the glibness of English tongues, because every Scotsman who

listened to the hon. Gentleman was convinced that he was not entirely satisfied with the Bill. I heard him mention only one good thing in the Bill, and that was only a subsection. He claimed, first of all, that the Borstal system, against which he set no good alternative—certainly no detailed alternative—was purely a matter of guesswork. He also claimed that the reports under which the authorities decide whether or not the offender after conviction should be sent to Borstal are again guesswork.
When we consider subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 19, I do not think that that opinion is entirely justified, because before a sentence of Borstal training is passed the court calls for a report on the physical and mental powers. It does not end there, because when the report is considered the court, if it thinks necessary, can send for any person, who is either concerned in the report, or mentioned in the report, or can add to the report, for a further examination. Taking into consideration the gravity with which the authorities in Scotland—I do not know what they may be like in England—look upon the question of young offenders, I think that they will certainly not lightly disregard considerations as to the effect of the two types of punishment.
Again, I think the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) failed to take into consideration the fact that, as far as the Bill itself is concerned, the alternative to a Borstal sentence is actual imprisonment. I feel that, whether or not there is guesswork as he suggests, there is no guesswork in the conclusion that the less humane and less reformative means of punishment have failed to stem the march of crime.
As the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) pointed out, crime does march on, although I think it was probably in jest that he suggested that we should take a certain amount of blame for the fact that it has marched on since 1945. The trend is very obvious. The trend of crime starts in 1939. My hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) pointed out that a lamentable, if natural, reaction from the war was the break-up of family life and the lack of parental control, occasioned by parents going into the Army, and in many cases by mothers going into factories.
The steps that have been taken to widen the scope of punishment for young offenders is something that we should support. The fact that there will be no imprisonment at all for young people under 17 should gratify most of us who feel that it really does not help the reformation of criminal tendencies to send young people of that age to mix with hardened offenders. Similarly, with those under 21, it will only be in exceptional circumstances that imprisonment as we know it, and as we do not like it for its effects on these young people, will be imposed. Prison is the last place to send any young offender if we want to have him reformed, and given the conditions of prisons today as described by the hon. and gallant Member for Perth and Kinross (Colonel Gomme-Duncan), where there is overcrowding and a freer mixing of prisoners, the deleterious effects would be even worse. We should-therefore be grateful for this step.
Remand homes and State remand centres, as well as the extension of the work of probation officers, will not in themselves bring the beneficial effects we desire unless these remand homes are very carefully supervised and the work done in them of a character which will lead to the rehabilitation of these young lads. In Committee we must spend a little more time looking into this question. The hon. Member for Chesterfield might help us there, because evidently he has studied the problem and has more experience of it than we have. We must see that we get the right probation officers as well as the right people to run these homes. I would only observe that it means more work for the probation officers, and I hope the Lord Advocate will note that at the present moment many probation officers in Scotland cannot even get a motorcar to go round doing their work, because they are granted no priority.
We have to be careful that the continued segregation in these remand homes and remand centres does not produce the same evils as prison segregation. Control depends upon the staff, and discipline must be imposed, because we do not want a complete softening up and relaxation of discipline. I mean real discipline. I should like to go on to discuss this question as raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok, but I think it

is more suitable for an education debate than one on a Criminal Justice Bill. Reeducation with a view to making them useful citizens is desirable, and we now have the chance. The whole thing is obviously symptomatic of much more deeply rooted diseases to which we as Members of Parliament must direct our attention.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: This Bill is concerned for the most part with the reform and punishment of those who have committed crimes and offences. To bring about the enlightened changes that are proposed here will take, even in the best circumstances, a long time, and in our present circumstances a much longer time. Therefore, the reaction of this Bill upon me is that while it is a very fine Measure on paper, it will not have very much effect at present upon the lessening of crime. This, apparently, is not the way by which we are to reduce quickly this dreadful toll of crime—it may do so ultimately, but not quickly. I am much concerned to find ways and means to reduce it quickly, which brings me to the third thought which has been in the minds of most Members, namely, prevention of crime. We are almost forced to look at that, because if we can somehow prevent crime we may reduce it much more quickly. What causes crime is the question we ought to ask ourselves, because if we know the causes of crime it will help us greatly in dealing with it.
There is no doubt that one of the causes of crime, certainly among young people, is bad housing. We cannot escape that. No one who like myself has had constituency responsibilities for nearly 17 years can fail to have seen the results of two, three and even five families cramped up together in one or two rooms, driven by physical circumstances away from their fireside at night into the streets. That upsets the whole mental and moral outlook of young people, and until we can remove this cause we shall always have a measure of juvenile delinquency. There is no doubt that poverty and unemployment have also been responsible for crime in the past, but we have no poverty now and we have very little unemployment, although we still have crime—more crime, in fact, among young people than ever before. Therefore, I am thrown back to housing as being the most important cause of all.
But there are other causes, as I have found from my own experience. We had better not be mealy-mouthed about this. The fact is that there are a great many parents of humble families and other families who are lamentably incapable of managing their households, and particularly the mothers. I am sure Members have come across many cases where the young mother is making a real mess of the whole business through sheer ignorance. She is not cooking food properly, or managing the home, her children or her husband properly, and there is trouble in consequence. There are still more parents who have not learnt what should be a fundamental lesson in parenthood, namely, how to teach children reasonable and decent manners. That "manners makyth man" is as old as the world. Have we not all come across many cases where ill-mannered children almost automatically run into trouble which had they been better mannered, they would have avoided?
Then, as has been said, how many more families are there which lack the Christian virtues of honesty, unselfishness and truth, with the result that children are lead into trouble? Of course, some men and some families are evil; it will no doubt be agreed that some clans were evil in other days.

Mr. Scollan: Like some parties.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I should not like to suggest that the Labour Party is more responsible in this respect than the rest of us, but I hope the hon. Member will not tempt me too far. Some people are incorrigible, and we cannot obviously deal with them. An evil man ought to be locked up; there is no other way. But I am concerned with the great mass of young people who are lead by environment into a great deal of trouble and what we can do about it.
At the present time the Secretary of State is limited in the amount of new housing he can provide for the country, and unless I am mistaken, he is to be limited a bit more after Monday—at least, we shall not expect a great advance. If I were the Secretary of State, I should make dead certain of sufficient housing being provided in Scotland for the police, because if the police are properly housed we shall have an immediate increase in the prevention of crime. I have gone into

this, and I am absolutely certain that a lot of trouble is due to this in the city of which we are speaking. I do not think anyone will deny that a great deal of the crime in Edinburgh and other parts of the country is also due to the fact that there are not enough houses for the police. Not a great deal can be done to improve the housing of the people, but the Secretary of State can do quite a lot in other directions.
A lot of the trouble of junior delinquency is to be found in the homes of comparatively young married couples. They have not been well taught at school. I was a member of the advisory council on education, and as the right hon. Gentleman knows we went into this matter among others. We were all impressed, I think, by the fact that sufficient opportunity is not provided in the schools for young girls to learn how to run a home. There is ample opportunity to learn French and English, all of which is very important, but a fundamental of human family happiness is the capacity to run a home sensibly. The Secretary of State might start now, as it will not be very expensive and need not take much time—

Mr. Ross: It has been started.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The Secretary of State could start now greatly extending the education offered to girls in school in the management of the home. I do not mean only cooking, but all the housework of the home, which would do a great deal of good. I am wondering whether the right hon. Gentleman would not consider again some more rapid approach to the junior colleges. I have told the House more than once, and I stand by my opinion now, that it would have been far better for Scottish children as a whole if, a year or two ago, we had chosen to extend the system of junior colleges instead of raising the school-leaving age. I am certain that on balance it would have paid us, but we chose otherwise. Cannot the Secretary of State extend this principle of continued education to help keep young people of 15, 16 or 17 off the streets and put them where they can learn something?

Mr. Woodburn: It has been calculated that to build a junior college would take labour and material equivalent to the building of 200 houses. Does the hon.


Gentleman think that any local authority at the moment would dare to build a junior college at the expense of 200 houses? Something much less elaborate than that would have to be done.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Yes, I agree that it would have to be less elaborate but, after all, the right hon. Gentleman increased the school-leaving age and added to the number of pupils schools have to take; he imposed on local authorities the duty of greatly increasing their accommodation. His answer does not quite meet my point. I say that something should be done now to extend the system of what, in the old days, we used to call evening classes. Now they are evening classes in a new sense.
There is a third thing which I believe the right hon. Gentleman could do. I was speaking about Christian principles, and although I do not want to make heavy weather of this, I believe it is the lack of Christian principles which is the cause of much of the trouble today. I should like to know how closely the right hon. Gentleman is in touch with the Church of Scotland in this matter. At the moment we have a Moderator of the Church of Scotland who is a man of great vision, whose mind goes far outside the confines of the Church of Scotland and who has a broad conception of the duties and interests of the Church. There is a great opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to consult the Moderator and see whether Church and State cannot bring a new spiritual urge into this matter. Something could be done now; it does not need great buildings or expenditure, or a 5- or 10- year plan. It could be done this year or next. It is along these lines that we must approach this problem, because no other lines are open to us in our present economic circumstances. We should do our utmost to reduce juvenile crime in our country so that we can all gradually move into a better behaved community.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Scollan: There are two points I should like to put to the Lord Advocate before dealing generally with the Bill. Clause 28 says:
For the removal of doubts it is hereby declared that a person may be convicted of, and punished for, a contravention of any statute or order, notwithstanding that he was guilty of such contravention as art and part only.

The term "art and part" is very elastic. If a person is quite innocently in the company of another person why may be guilty of a particular crime, it could be said that he took art and part in it. I should like to know what is implied by this provision, and whether the Lord Advocate does not think it is high time that it was removed from Scottish law altogether?
I also want to ask about rules for the management of prisons, etc. Clause 49 (2) says:
Rules made under this section shall make provision for ensuring that a person who is charged with any offence under the rules shall be given a proper opportunity of presenting his case.
Assuming that a prisoner has broken a rule, and is brought before the governor or commissioners, will he have the right to call witnesses, such as fellow prisoners, in his defence? Will he have the right of representation? If there is to be some kind of trial, either the governor has to be given complete power or there must be provision for the rights that are given in the case of an ordinary trial.
During this interesting discussion we have heard a lot about juvenile crime. For some years I was a magistrate in the City of Glasgow, and I was often pained at the number of juvenile cases which were brought before the bench. Not always, but very frequently, we discovered that the root cause of the trouble was in the offender's home. I realise, however, how difficult it would be to find an immediate and lasting cure. I have read "Crime and Punishment," by Dostoievsky, and "It is never too late to mend," by Charles Reade, who was responsible for prison reform in the days of the treadmill. I also discussed this matter some years ago with the late Chief Constable of Glasgow, Mr. Warren who said, "So long as offenders have never been in prison they have a fear of it, and that tends to hold them back. But once they have served a term of imprisonment they come out and say, 'It is all right; I did it on my ear.'" I agreed with that statement. Instead of prison preventing people from going further along the wrong road it results in contempt for reformatory measures.
One thing that struck me as a magistrate was that crimes against property resulted in stiff penalties while the penalties for crimes against a person were often ludicrous. We remember the


cases of razor slashing and men clubbing each other with bottles. I could quote cases in my own city where the punishment for these offences was ridiculous. Often, decent working-class citizens were in danger. In fact, in some districts people were afraid to give evidence against offenders of a violent disposition, who were ready to use physical force without provocation against would-be witnesses. It is very difficult to know what to do in these cases.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) brought up the old gag, which I thought was buried 30 years ago, about the phrenologist finding out by the shape of the head whether a person had criminal tendencies or not, and he added that it was being used in America. He also spoke about the criminal type. That suggestion was exploded a long time ago. There is no such thing as a criminal type. The potential criminal is anyone in society today. If a man becomes a housebreaker or a burglar he deliberately does it because, though he knows it is a gamble, he thinks if it comes off, he can live a better life than the ordinary working man, and if it does not come off, it is not too bad inside. That is the psychology of the position. We hear about a set type of criminal, a principle that seems to be accepted by the people of America, and it is argued that that type will go that way anyway irrespective of what is done for them. That type of fatalistic nonsense has got to be exploded. Statistics do not always prove anything, but one thing they do prove is that, if we take the percentage of those with a criminal tendency, we see that the thing becomes ridiculous.
So far as treating prisoners in a more humane fashion is concerned, we have to remember that at one time society punished its criminals only by corporal punishment. Then the citizen grew more civilised, and only those who were more vicious in their actions against society were incarcerated in prison. That brings us to the point where we find a new idea developing. I have listened with very great interest to criticisms of this new idea which is an open air prison. In one part of the world they have adopted the scheme whereby those who break a certain code of laws in that country shall be lifted by the scruff of the neck and

placed in another part of the country to do useful work instead of being incarcerated in prison.
We are gradually passing from the old way of dealing with crime and punishment. I believe that the main cause of the trouble with our adolescents in Scotland is that from 14 to 18 years of age they have nothing to do in their spare time. Would it not be better if someone got down to the question of the innumerable important jobs which have to be done in the country and for which labour cannot be procured, and take these youths for those jobs? A question was asked in the House the other day, and the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies was to the effect that certain steps were taken because the prisons were overcrowded in a certain Colony. Everybody seemed surprised at that. I drew the attention of the House to the fact that there has been a campaign going on against Russia, because that country has done exactly the same thing.
We have to face the question of whether the old penal method we knew in our lifetime is better than the one which was in existence prior to it, remembering that the one prior to it was purely corporal punishment. Chief Constable Warren said to me on one occasion that if he had had his way when a first offender went into custody he would receive a short, sharp lesson, and would come out in a day or two's time never wanting to go back. I am inclined to agree with that. That is a point to consider instead of incarcerating them in a Borstal institution. Let us not forget that the finest men in the world can be employed in Borstal to teach those incarcerated about love, their duty as citizens and all the rest of it, but it will not make any difference when these high-spirited youngsters congregate together without anything useful to do. Then it will be found that they will develop that very disease which the State is trying to cure. They must be kept within the bounds and the nature of their punishment must be to do something useful. If something is done on those lines, we would have much greater progress today in the crusade of putting down juvenile and adolescent crime.
My last words are to the Lord Advocate. While accepting the present


system, I sincerely hope the time will come when we shall be prepared to examine some new creative system which will revolutionise the whole business, and get rid of those who think it is far more cruel to steal 20 years off a man's life than it is to hang him.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I welcome the ideas underlying this Bill. To emphasise the point of trying to reform the criminal, particularly the youthful offender, is very desirable, but in looking over this Bill I am rather uneasy. When this Bill has been in operation for a time we shall have more people in institutions than we have today. We are to have remand centres, detention centres, approved probation homes and hostels, which will all be additional, and we are to have an increase in the Borstal population. At the end of it we are likely to have an increase in the prison population. There seems to me to be something wrong with this Bill if that is going to be the actual result.
We have heard a lot today about the increase in crime, and particularly of crime amongst adolescents. There are quite good reasons for this. Many of them have been given in the course of this Debate. I am not so certain that the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) was quite right when he talked about the influence of the home. If it is true that that is one of the most important causes then it would suggest that the parent of today is a worse parent than the parent of 20 or 30 years ago. I do not think that that is so.
I should have thought that the most important factor in the lives of these children, who are now 15 or 16 years of age, is that for six of the most formative years of their lives their fathers were away. That means that there was an enormous lack of influence in their lives at a very important time. A child gets out of hand and his mother is incapable of dealing with him, particularly if he is a boy because he has got too big. He is also surrounded, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin), with all the glamour of war. He is taught that it is a great thing to smack somebody on the back of the neck or indulge in some other dodge and he gets a rather queer outlook upon society.
I should have thought that the attention the problem is receiving from organisations such as the Churches and youth societies would bring about a diminution in youthful crime. We ought to be looking forward not to an increase but to a decrease in crime, as are many people to whom I have spoken on this matter. We are to treat youthful offenders along the lines suggested by the Bill. The success of that treatment should mean a decreased demand for prison accommodation, yet we are to have an extra prison and more accommodation. It is suggested that more offenders will require accommodation in prisons under the provisions relating to corrective and preventive detention. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) suggested that the provisions of the Bill would, in themselves, be the greatest deterrent to crime. I have sympathy with that view. If the sentences which can be imposed under the Bill are to be worth while, they should be a deterrent, and we should have fewer criminals still.
I am puzzled, because while, on all those grounds, there should be an automatic decrease in adolescent crime, we are asked for increased prison accommodation. We are supposed to be taking steps to deal with crime in a way that will turn youthful offenders into good citizens. It is exceedingly puzzling, to say the least of it, and I would like the Minister to give us information on how the results he expects are to be arrived at. The interesting thing is the statement that the increased demand for prison accommodation which is expected as a result of the Bill will not show itself until several years after the Bill has come into operation. This matter requires explanation. If the Bill is as good as it ought to be and as hon. Members have said it is, we ought to require less prison accommodation. If the Bill does not achieve that result, it will be a failure.

7.14 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I do not think it can be denied that we have had a most interesting Debate. It is odd how this House can produce Members of high experience in almost every subject and at very short notice. This Debate upon criminal justice has been taken part in by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Colonel Gomme-Duncan)


who has been an inspector of prisons, by the chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform, by an hon. Member with great experience in the organisation of prison officers, the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), and, in addition, by ordinary citizens, whose attitude to this matter is perhaps more important than that of any of the experts. They are the people with a positive contribution to make, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. McFarlane). We have also had some of the robust common sense of the hon. Member for Western Renfrew (Mr. Scollan).
This is all the more important, because today is one of those days when the community is in an unhappy mood. We are reviewing our failures. That is what is overhanging our discussion. More particularly, we are reviewing a more recent failure: the treatment of crime is constantly becoming more humane, yet the number of persons in detention is constantly increasing. Something is going wrong. Obviously we are not merely studying the general phenomenon of the failure of the community to cope with certain individuals but an increasing failure in certain other respects. The Bill is largely one of organisation and machinery and it will have its effect solely upon the individuals whom it attracts into the treatment of this intractable problem.
I do not believe that this problem will be solved by the scientific researches mentioned by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson). With all respect to him, I say that what he said to the House was that this subject had been investigated, not here but in America, a country of such films as "I was a prisoner in a chain gang," and novels or biographies which would make one think there was a wide field for improvement in some of the treatments of offenders in the United States. The difficulty was that although the hon. Member suggested that the methods of treatment had achieved most valuable results, which would point the way to new methods of advance, "those methods," said the hon. Member in effect, "are so recondite that I could not give the House even an inkling of what they are." Methods which are too recondite for the hon. Member for Chesterfield, who has a great gift of exposition, are

not so hopeful as he would have us believe.

Mr. Benson: I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will realise that I am an interloper in this Debate. I had already spoken for a quarter of an hour. If the House could have put up with me for an hour I could have explained them.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: No hon. Member is an interloper in our Debates. We are more than glad to have advice and counsel from any quarter, especially in this matter, which affects not only the part of the country north of the Border. The prison population there is not drawn from only one section of the United Kingdom. There is a floating population even there. Secondly, and this is more important, if it would take the hon. Member an hour to explain the matter to a fairly intelligent audience such as this, with a certain amount of specialised knowledge, what is the chance of the ordinary man understanding it at all?
I think that the hon. Member for Chesterfield sought to prove too much. He asked: What is the use of a system in which the court is at a great disadvantage, in which the Borstal governor has a six weeks' vetting of a boy and then an 18 months' knowledge of him, after which his estimate of the probable chances of the boy's recovery is such as could be expressed by the tossing up of a penny and guessing "heads" or "tails"? The logical conclusion to that is that the court might as well do that in the beginning without this process. This is somewhat too paradoxical for the hon. Member for Chesterfield seriously to advance.
I agree with the hon. Member for West Renfrew that this is not a matter which can be solved by statistics or research. We cannot analyse the instrument by the instrument. We cannot dissect the mind by the mind. We cannot carry out these complicated researches because the research reagent is being altered by the things it is doing just as much as the object upon which the research is being carried out. I distrust these matters. I believe we have to fall back on rule of thumb here, and I do not seriously believe that the line of argument put forward by the hon. Member for Chesterfield is one which, for a long time to come at any rate, will be


of any very great advantage to those who are discussing this difficult and intractable problem.
We therefore have before us a problem which is being examined both north and south of the Border. This Bill has a parallel in the English Bill, and, if I may address myself to the Lord Advocate, I understand that the differences between the two Bills are some half dozen in number. This Debate will go on record and it is desirable that we should be able to compare the two approaches. I do not believe that they differ very much. In England, I understand, the court must convict before making a probationer discharge order, but in the Scottish Bill no conviction is recorded in the case of summary jurisdiction. No doubt the Lord Advocate will give the reason for that.
In England stipendiary magistrates and all petty sessional courts and courts of quarter sessions who desire for exceptional reasons to send young persons under 21 to prison must state their reason in writing for adopting this course. I understand that this is not provided for in the Scottish Bill, although it may become the practice.
Thirdly, the Scottish Bill makes no provision for attendance centres for young people, which were introduced into the English Act by Lord Templewood. Fourthly, in England the court can order a defendant to pay damages for injury or compensation for loss. There is no power under existing Scottish criminal law to award costs against an offender. If anybody desires to claim damages, I understand that he has subsequently to take proceedings in the civil court.
Fifthly, in the Scottish Bill security for good behaviour by a probationer who is a child can only be given by a parent or guardian, whereas in England it can be given by any person who consents to give it. There may be advantages in that, but, again, that is a point upon which the House would like information from the Lord Advocate. Lastly, there is a division in legal opinion about the words:
Proceedings on indictment against bodies corporate.
I understand that Lord Normand and Lord Reid took different views about the

meaning of this. Anything on which Lord Normand and Lord Reid differ is obviously a matter which we should approach with the greatest trepidation.
These are obviously minor differences. The broad problem remains the same. The broad problem remains that we have this rising prison population and the rising number of cases of crime. I once worked out that house-breaking, burglary and theft had become one of the major heavy industries of the country 'and that the output of the offences against property in London in a year was about equal to the shipbuilding output of the Clyde. That is a formidable figure. It shows that it is a large industry, and in some ways it backs up the opinion of the hon. Member for West Renfrew that some people have chosen this way of life because they think it is a good chance, if they are willing to risk it, and feel that it is not so bad if they have to go inside, which, incidentally, is a strong argument against prison reform at all.
There is also the difficulty of the liberalisation not producing its corresponding diminution. The hon. Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Willis) said very truly that we should be looking forward to a diminution of the prison population. Obviously they are the worst misfits of all when you can do nothing with men except lock them up and deprive them of the opportunity even of contributing to the upkeep of society, let alone of improving themselves. Then we reach the last stage. As has been said during the Debate, to lock a man up for 20 years may in some ways be as grave as, or graver than, taking his life because we damage him irreparably. We have an example in point because before the war commenced all prisoners with less than three months to serve and all the Borstal inmates who had served not less than six months of their detention were discharged unconditionally. That was partly to minimise the dangers from air-raids, etc., and the prison populations were thereby reduced.
That did not last very long; the number of prisoners has been rising steadily. In 1939 there were 1,350, in 1940, 1,320, in 1941, 1,337, in 1942, 1559, in 1945, 1,955, in 1946, 1,983, in 1947, 1,889 and in 1948, 1,902. That is a graph which runs contrary to the satisfactory social


graphs in other aspects of our national life with which we are all pleased. People say that this is due to broken homes and the lack of parental control but what becomes of the arguments about the improved health of the children and the decreasing maternal mortality. It is a very odd thing that the same set of facts are used in relation to an increased wave of crime and the increased healthiness of the citizens.

Mr. Woodburn: There is also the abolition of poverty.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: It is an odd thing that that should lead to an increase in crime. That goes contrary to the argument which has usually been adduced. I am always a little doubtful about that.

Dr. Morgan: One is physical and the other is mental.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Not quite. If it is true that the abolition of poverty leads to a diminution in crime, the saintliest of our characters should be the club-men of the West End. That is not always true. Poverty does not always go with crime. If so it would have been a very bad look-out for the Twelve Apostles. It is a more recondite problem than this.
We are gradually being driven quite against our will to a conviction of the existence of evil, a revolutionary thought. The idea of the nineteenth century that there was no such thing as evil and that things would get better and better until sin and sorrow disappeared is not borne out by fact. There is something different in life, or in that outside life which we do not know; certainly there is something very resistant, tough and stubborn which is certainly not to be dismissed simply by humanitarian methods.
There are certain immediate steps which can obviously be taken. It has been said that one lamp-post is worth 10 policemen. That is a very good maxim. Prevention is better than cure. There is no doubt that the large places are almost invitations to offences against property, not to speak of other offences. As I have said, the diminished number of police in the Metropolitan and all other areas is almost an invitation to crime. That leads me to the point made by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) and others, that the conditions both of the police and of the prison

officers must receive the close attention of the Secretary of State, because it has been proved by experience that they diminish crime.
The one way of diminishing crime is the certainty of detection. If the ordinary criminal thinks he will be detected, it is a great deal more effective as a deterrent than the fear of the punishment he will receive if by chance he is caught. Therefore, to diminish it I would attach more importance to adequate policing than to some of the remedies which have been brought forward, such as education. I rather doubt the holding up of the school as the sole forum in which civic virtues can be inculcated.
Again, housing is of much greater importance and there are one or two suggestions one might make there. For instance, does it not seem anomalous that in Duke Street in the heart of Glasgow there is one of the most thinly populated areas, far more thinly populated than the most wealthy of the districts represented by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith)? There are seven acres with eight people to the acre on them living in the heart of an area with a population of 100 or 200 to the acre all round—the prison of Duke Street. In my time I was anxious to get that prison pulled down and housing started on that site—

Mr. Hubbard: Was that facing the future?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: —and it would have been done if war had not broken out. Now, however, the war is over, and those who talk so much about facing the future might face the present. One of the present things is that every time that one takes a tram down Duke Street one sees this sterilised area sitting in the middle of the slum which produces prisoners to go into that prison.
A vigorous campaign might be launched, and when the Secretary of State says that it would take 200 houses to produce one of the junior colleges, it might be reasonably asked whether convergence might not be carried out; whether, in fact, the right hon. Gentleman has not set himself too ambitious a standard in housing; whether he could not render a great service by reducing the intense congestion even at the cost of somewhat reducing the superficial area.


Sorrowful as I would be to do that, yet I say that the overcrowding in our cities is so desperate now that in some way or other it must be reduced. Certainly it is a counsel of despair to say that at some time or other we shall need to stop housing for a year in order to build schools, or that we shall need to stop building 200 houses in order to build one of the junior colleges. We must advance on a broader front than this or else this problem will never be solved at all.
The discussion that has gone on today is a discussion of the actual steps which are being taken to deal with this problem, but I come back again to the point that this twentieth century has had literally burned into it a conviction of the existence of evil. Jung, the psychologist, recently read a paper in which he said that the only result as far as he could see of two enormous European wars had been that the 15,000 or 20,000 intelligentsia have been convinced of the existence of evil. He added that two wars were a cheap price to pay for that; that, in fact, it was such an important conclusion that it was worth all the destruction which had been necessary to bring it about.
How we can deal with that is certainly a problem beyond the power of the House today, but it is not to be dealt with by the idea of the nineteenth century that simply by an increase of liberality can the problem of crime be solved. That is the fundamental admission we have to make. We can only deal with it by good men in the prisons dealing with the results because it will be from good men and women that the prisoners will learn.
Several speakers have quoted Charles Reade's "It is never too late to mend." It was a chaplain there, who by example and not by teaching, produced the modification of the prison in which he worked. It was his memory which later, when the convicts were deported to Australia, that more than once affected them and kept them from falling back into crime. It was the example of a single individual and, until we discover some further technique or method of dealing with it, the only way we shall ever produce any lasting reform of these unhappy characters is by getting good individuals into contact with those misfits. It is the only way in which we shall bring about what all the House

desires—a permanent cure of those unhappy individuals for whom we all feel a responsibility. Even more, every one of us recognises the truth uttered by the great prison reformer who looked out of the window at the convicts going past and said, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

7.37 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. John Wheatley): In the first place, I endorse what the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) has said with regard to the nature of this discussion. My own feeling is that Scottish Members distinguish themselves more in this field, where they are dealing with broad human considerations, than in any other. Various aspects have been canvassed and a range of views has been presented to the House, from the ultra-humanitarian to the rather rigid, but I do not think that any of the hon. Members who have spoken could be accused of being the lineal descendants of Lord Braxfield, who summarised cavalierly the fate of people who came before him in the simple expression, "Here's a chiel that's nane the waur o' a hanging."
We have not had the usual contribution from the legal profession in this Debate despite the fact that it is a Criminal Justice Bill, but I will not suggest that the Debate has been any the worse for that, because on a subject of this nature—again I endorse the views of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman—the views and opinions of experienced men and women of the world are just as important as the views of any one profession, although the views of the profession would naturally be desirable.
I think, therefore, that the House will be reassured to know that in the preliminary stages the high personages in the legal profession were necessarily consulted in relation to a number of things. Also, as the House knows, this Bill went through its baptism of fire in another place where it was subject to the scrutiny of two eminent Scottish Law Lords as well as other members of the other place with legal qualifications. In this House we have had a large variety of viewpoints represented. I might almost say that even the consumer's interest has not been left unattended to.
The Bill is a reflection of the change which has taken place during the past few decades in the attitude of the community towards offenders against our criminal law. We are steadily getting away from the old Mosaic idea of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, the emphasis is shifting from punishment for the offence to treatment of the offender—in other words, to make the punishment fit the criminal and not the crime, subject to the necessary reservations to ensure that particular types of offenders are not too leniently dealt with and that sufficient powers are at the disposal of the courts to ensure that where necessary rigid punishment should be administered.
There may be differing views about what "rigid punishment" means. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) deprecated the passing of whipping. I think he is, perhaps, a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

Sir T. Moore: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should not believe that.

The Lord Advocate: I do believe it, but I may be wrong. Even if I were wrong in thinking that the hon. and gallant Member is a lane voice, I am sure he is in a very small minority, and I am convinced that the reasons adduced during the passage of the Criminal Justice Act when whipping was abolished were perfectly justified because the modern conception of punishment regards whipping as something not consistent with ideas of humane punishment.

Sir T. Moore: That was against the decision and desire of the highest legal officer in the country—the Lord Chief Justice.

The Lord Advocate: With the greatest deference, I am not always prepared to accept that people in that position are necessarily the best judges of the appropriate form of punishment. They can vary extremely depending upon their individual nature. One of our greatest criminal judges in Scotland—a man for whom I think, everyone here will have the greatest respect as a criminal lawyer; now, unfortunately, not with us—Lord Justice Clerk Craigie Aitchison, held

entirely different views. I do not want to make comparisons but to indicate that there are different views among different members of the judiciary. That does not mean to say, however, that we are being, weak or sentimental towards the criminal or that the punitive element is being ignored or eliminated.
The basis of our new approach proceeds from a proper appreciation of the old Scottish principle that where a criminal has undergone his punishment, he has "tholed his assize." This surely must mean more than that he is not capable of being tried again for the same offence. In a proper system of criminal administration it should also mean, first, that the ordinary prisoner should, after the termination of his punishment, return to society without a chip on his shoulder or a grudge against society; and secondly, with the necessary safeguards in certain cases, he should not be penalised further by being a marked man in the social and economic life of the community by virtue of his conviction.
That will call not only for a new attitude from the criminal, but for a new attitude from society. One of the great difficulties, in my experience in criminal law—and I have a fair experience of it now—has been the tragedy of the man who came out of prison and became a social pariah, and who could do nothing else but return to crime because he could find no employment and no proper place in society. Therefore, while we recognise and impose upon the man who has been convicted the duty to readjust himself to come out to take his rightful place in society, we also impose upon society the duty to absorb that man once he is free.
Towards the end of getting the punishment appropriate to fit not only the crime but the criminal, we have extended the various methods of punishment available to the court. We have extended the duty of inquiry by the court before deciding what the form of punishment should be. That still leaves the range of punishment within the discretion of the court, and it is for the court at the end of the day to determine, in the particular circumstances of any case, what is the appropriate system of punishment.
Although we have introduced other and new methods of reformative treatment,


we have also introduced, as hon. Members will recollect, a new form of punishment known as corrective training, and we have reviewed the whole basis of preventive detention, which previously was inter-linked with habitual criminality. In Scotland we were never able in recent years to take advantage of that form of punishment owing to the difficulty of proving habitual criminality. In the last few years, therefore, preventive detention in Scotland was almost a dead letter. By the new method, introduced in the Bill, of corrective training for the younger members of the community with certain previous convictions, and by preventive detention for the older men above 30 with more previous convictions, we have introduced a new system of punish-men for cases where that is appropriate.
We have rightly left the discretion at the end of the day to the court. It is not either for this House or for the Executive to try to indicate to the court what punishment there should be apart from outlining in any statute the range of punishment appropriate to any particular offence. We must have faith and confidence in our judiciary, from the highest to the lowest, to impose the appropriate sentence. If sometimes we disagree with the sentence which is imposed, we must realise that different judges approach problems from different angles and are different human beings.
The second principle in the reform of offenders involves the extension of the work of the After Care Council. I refer, first, to the adjustment of the prisoner and, secondly, to the adjustment of society. To effect that adjustment a great deal will depend on the extension on the work of the After Care Council in reabsorbing men back into society. If I may respectfully say so, I doubt whether sufficient notice has been paid to that aspect of the Bill.
The principles to which I have referred are particularly apposite in the case of youthful offenders, first offenders and, of course, those suffering from mental weaknesses. We must, and do, preserve these strong powers of punishment, but we must not lose sight of the fact that where possible it is better to reform an offender into a useful and unembittered member of society than to wreak vengeance on him and leave him an embittered pariah

on society. It is against that background that the Bill has been presented.
There may be many points of detail which can be properly discussed in Committee, and I am sure hon. Members will appreciate that I am not indicating any discourtesy if I do not deal meticulously with all the points which have been raised. In saying that, let me sound a word of warning. We are very anxious, because of the timetable—not for tonight, but hereafter—for the Bill to pass through Committee so that we shall get the Act this Session. While I do not want in any way to indicate that we are clamping down on the Committee stage, I appeal to hon. Members to bear that in mind when we reach the Committee stage and Amendments are tabled.
Turning to some of the points which have been raised, my first comment is that we all appreciate the great social problem of the causes of crime and how to prevent it. I trust I may be excused if I do not develop that topic tonight, because it is a subject on which one could speak for a very long time and the Bill deals really with the treatment of offenders, after offences have been committed, with a view to returning them to society in the best possible form and shape. I would rather not go into the very difficult social problem because I could not do it justice in the time at my disposal.
There was a criticism that this Bill was good on paper, but no use in practice. I demur entirely from that criticism. It is perfectly true, having regard to the economic position of the country, that it may be we cannot immediately build certain buildings envisaged within this Bill, but those buildings to which reference was made only concern three Clauses of the Bill. There is a tremendous amount of other machinery in the Bill which is of the greatest value in improving not only the treatment of offenders but the prosecution of offenders, the duty of a court to take certain steps to see that the proper treatment is available for offenders, and things of that nature. To suggest that there is no good in this Bill—

Sir T. Moore: No one said that.

The Lord Advocate: —is to ignore many of the admirable features of the Bill and to concentrate on two or three


Clauses and say that because the various buildings necessary for putting into effect the working of those Clauses may not be available within the next year or two this Bill is only a paper Bill.
We are extending the variety of the methods of treatment. In order to indicate in the case of a young person the varieties now open to the court, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that a case may be dealt with by an absolute discharge, by probation, or by a fine, a younger child might be sent to an approved school, and a juvenile to a detention centre, or to Borstal. That gives a large variety of forms of treatment for young offenders whereby they may get the appropriate treatment for the particular circumstances of the case.
In the case of those who may be mentally affected, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Hubbard) was rather apprehensive that a person who had to go and get some form of treatment as a result of the report to the court should not be left without some sort of safeguard or remedy and there should be periodic examinations to ensure that he was not left there indefinitely. I can give my hon. Friend that assurance because, if the men were certified as mentally deficient or insane under the respective statutes they would go into institutions and be subject to periodic inspections. If they were placed on probation with the condition that they should have this treatment they would be under probation officers and subject to periodic examination.
I now turn to examine the position in regard to probation. I wish to make an appeal and, without in any way transgressing on the rights of the court to determine the appropriate sentence in any case, to draw the attention of summary jurisdiction courts in particular to the fact that probation is a form of treatment available not only for young persons but available for persons of any age. Unfortunately, in Scotland we have not taken advantage of it sufficiently as compared with England.
My right hon. Friend gave some figures which showed that in England 28 per cent. of the juveniles brought before the courts were put on probation but only 14 per cent. in Scotland. In the case of adults the figures were 2 per cent. in England and .5 per cent. in Scotland.

Yet the figures show that for the years 1945–48, which are the comparable years for the figures I have given, of the juveniles put on probation 80 per cent. to 87 per cent. completed the course of probation satisfactorily, which indicates that it is a good form of treatment if properly carried out. I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend that if we are to have these methods utilised to the fullest extent, we must have the right people there and the right form of training. That is all provided for in the Bill and we are hoping we shall get the proper people there.
Dealing with the introduction of new matter into the Bill, hon. Members will remember that before sentence of imprisonment can be passed on a young person under the age of 21 there must be a full inquiry into the whole of his circumstances and the court must inquire into any alternative method of punishment and be satisfied that there is no proper alternative method of punishment before imposing that method of imprisonment, which indicates a more humane approach to ensure that young people do not get imprisonment at too early an age and have that mark seared into their souls which may alter the whole course of their lives.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) made what I regarded as an attack on the Bill.

Mr. Benson: No.

The Lord Advocate: He rather demurs, from that and I am prepared to accept his demur. He put forward a thesis that this is a thoroughly bad Bill and that nothing I could say could prove the contrary. I am accepting his explanation that he thinks it a good Bill despite that. I think I have already said sufficient to indicate that this is a good Bill. He was particularly anxious about the position of Borstal training and asked why it was that we had altered the sentence of Borstal to a flat rate of three years when heretofore it could be either two or three years.
The answer is simple; a sentence can be only a flat rate of three years, but, during that period, the Secretary of State is entitled to release the Borstal prisoner conditionally on supervision up to a period of 12 months, or the unexpired period of sentence, whichever is the


shorter. Therefore, administratively, it will be possible to reduce that sentence dependent upon the manner in which the Borstal inmate is responding to Borstal treatment. I think that a better idea than saying that it should be a sentence of either two or three years. In other words, a person in Borstal by his attitude towards his treatment can qualify for a much quicker release than two or three years.

Mr. Benson: That applies to two years, of course.

The Lord Advocate: My hon. Friend also said that the basis of assessment was purely guess work when judging the appropriate sentence in any case. I listened with interest because I thought we would get an alternative theory and a better defined scale of punishment. At the end of the day, when dealing with individuals surely it is the experience of the man on the Bench, armed with the information brought before him which will determine whether or not it is the right sentence. That may be guess work but, generally, it has worked out very well in our practice in Scottish courts.
This Bill, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, is a Bill for which we cannot take much credit because we are merely echoing advice given by departmental officers. I should like to pay tribute to the work of departmental officers who have contributed in no small measure to producing a Bill which I can say with confidence will be accepted with open arms in legal circles in Scotland and is regarded as a fine Bill. Apart from the great co-operation we have from departmental officials, we have had the advice of various bodies to which my right hon. Friend referred in his opening speech.
I now wish to deal with one or two questions posed to me by the right hon. and gallant Member for Scottish Universities. He wanted to know why our Bill differed in some respects from the English Measure. The primary answer is that we have our own particularly Scottish procedure, Scottish background and Scottish history and we have been at pains to see it preserved in this Bill. We did not slavishly follow this English Bill and disregard that traditional Scottish background. In summary cases in Scotland

we have placed people on probation without proceeding to conviction ever since 1907 when the Probation of Offenders Act came in.
The English Act provided for proceeding to conviction, and the reason we differ is that we feel in Scotland, if we are to put a person on probation for a minor offence which is triable in a court of summary jurisdiction, it rather offends against the idea of probation that we should record a conviction against him. In other words, if he satisfactorily comes through his probation he is entitled to get off with a clean sheet, subject to the proviso that we have reserved the right to make reference to previous probation orders if a person comes up again. That is desirable because if a court has to decide whether or not a person is suitable for probation the court should be in possession of the knowledge that he had previously been on probation and know how he had responded to that probation treatment.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that under the English Act magistrates who were sentencing people under the age of 21 to imprisonment had to give their reasons in writing. We have a corresponding provision in our Bill in Clause 17 (3) in respect of judges of courts of summary jurisdiction other than sheriffs and the one stipendiary magistrate whom we have in Scotland. We have excluded them because we feel that they are qualified judges as distinct from the lay judges found in the other courts.
To take the case of a sheriff, if he were sitting with a jury in solemn procedure, he would not be required to state in writing his reason for imposing imprisonment on a person whereas if we made a sheriff do so under this Clause he would be required to state his reasons in writing when sitting in cases of summary jurisdiction. It seems silly to ask a man sitting in one capacity to give his reasons in writing and sitting in another capacity not to do so. We feel that we have sufficient confidence in our sheriffs and our stipendiary magistrate to exclude them from the operation of this Clause, while at the same time maintaining it so far as lay magistrates are concerned.
So far as attendance centres are concerned, we feel that they would not serve


any particular purpose, particularly having regard to the scattered population in many parts of the country. We have various other forms of alternative punishments and methods of dealing with young people and we do not feel that the setting up of attendance centres at this stage would effect any useful purpose.
We have never had in Scotland the system for awarding damages in criminal cases, which I understand was a further point made. We in Scotland feel that the proper procedure in such a case is to allow the person damnified to raise a civil action for damages and not confuse what is purely a criminal matter with a civil matter. There is another reason for that attitude. In Scotland criminal proceedings are, with very few exceptions, at the instance of the public prosecutor and not at the instance of a private prosecutor, and it is undesirable that the public prosecutor should in a way be acting as the solicitor of a pursuer in an action of damages for recovery in respect of his damnification. The person damnified should raise his action in the ordinary way in the civil court and should not do it at the hands of the public prosecutor.
The next point raised by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was the question of security so far as probation was concerned—that in Scotland the only person who could stand in would be the parent or guardian whereas in England any person consenting to do so could be accepted. We considered this very carefully indeed, but we came down against the English system because we felt that by the introduction of the consenting party, no matter how well meaning and well being he may be—it might be a clergyman in some cases—we should be introducing a third element. The responsibility is still that of the parent. If a third party were introduced who had a financial interest in the matter to see that the child was behaving himself properly, and if that third person was coming to see if Johnnie was getting into the house before eight o'clock at night and was doing this and not doing that, the possibility of friction through that third party interference would become very great. We felt that rather than risk that possible conflict of interest which might arise, we should be better without it.
The last point raised by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was about proceeding on indictment against bodies corporate. In Scotland we could heretofore proceed on indictment against bodies corporate only in certain circumstances—under Defence Regulations, under the Companies Act and under the price control regulations. We felt that bodies corporate should be chargeable on indictment like any other legal persona in Scotland and we have introduced a clause to make them so indictable.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: But it was regarded as a little obscure. I wonder if during the Committee stage it would be possible for the Lord Advocate to clear up the point a little more?

The Lord Advocate: If the nature of the obscurity is brought to my notice I will look at what their Lordships said on, the matter. I was in the other place when it was being discussed, and my recollection is that the Bill is all right as it stands.
I do not want to go into the other matters regarding witnesses, representation at trials, etc. These matters can be dealt with in Committee. All I wish to say is a word of consolation in regard to accommodation in prisons. I had not intended to deal with it because the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who raised it, having made his speech, left the House and did not come back. I doubt if he is entitled to any reply, but as he has raised a point which may be of interest to other Members in the House, it is right to let them know that accommodation for prisoners in Scotland is considerably higher than the average number of inmates. In other words, we have a fair amount of room still available. It is one of the few areas in Scotland where we have not got a housing problem, certainly not an overcrowding problem.
I should not like to think that we shall have more people in our institutions as the result of the new measures. It may be that we shall have more as a result of longer sentences of corrective training and preventive detention, but I hope, as a result of what is being done, fewer people will go into prison. Though we have more methods to deal with offenders, it does not necessarily mean dealing with more; it may be the same number or even fewer. But it may be that one or two new types of prison would be desirable in


the interests of advance in this particular line of country.
I should like to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their contributions. In its march through its various stages this Bill will, like every other, be improved. We should like to send from this House eventually a Bill which, though perhaps not the millennium, is a definite step towards the better administration of criminal justice in this country, consistent with more modern and I should like to think more enlightened views, and which, while retaining the power to punish strongly wrongdoers who need punishment will salvage many other offenders from the wreck of wrongdoing and let them return to society as lawful and useful members of the community.

Orders of the Day — CRIMINAL JUSTICE (SCOTLAND) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order 84 (Money Committees).—[King's recommendation signified.]

[Mr. BOWLES in the Chair]

Resolved:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law of Scotland relating to the probation of offenders, and the powers of courts under the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937; to abolish certain punishments and obsolete sanctions, and otherwise to reform existing methods and provide new methods of dealing with offenders in Scotland; to alter the law relating to the proceedings of criminal courts in Scotland; to amend the False Oaths (Scotland) Act, 1933, to regulate the management of prisons and other institutions and the treatment of offenders and other persons committed to custody in Scotland; and for purposes connected with the aforesaid matters, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(a) of any expenses of the Secretary of State under the said Act, and any expenses incurred by him in the training of probation officers, and officers or servants serving in approved probation hostels or approved probation homes as defined in the said Act of the present Session or in remand homes or approved schools, and in the training of persons for appointment as probation officers or as such officers or servants as aforesaid;
(b) of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in the conduct of research

into the causes of delinquency, the treatment of offenders and matters connected therewith;
(c) of any expenses incurred by the General Board of Control for Scotland in connection with State Mental Hospitals;
(d) of any sums by which grants payable in pursuance of regulations made under subsection (1) of section sixty-six of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, for the purposes of superannuation benefits to officers engaged in health services are increased by reason of any provision of the said Act of the present Session enabling such regulations to be made for the purpose of granting superannuation benefits to officers employed in State Mental Hospitals;
(e) of such sums as the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, direct to be paid—

(i) towards expenditure incurred by local authorities, as defined by the said Act of the present Session, in meeting the expenses of probation committees in connection with the probation and supervision of offenders and the supervision of children and young persons;
(ii) towards expenditure incurred by any society or person in establishing, enlarging, improving or carrying on approved probation hostels or homes;
(iii) towards expenditure incurred by any body approved by the Secretary of State in the training of probation officers or of persons for appointment as probation officers;
(iv) towards expenditure incurred by any body approved by the Secretary of State in the training of officers or servants serving in any place in which offenders or persons awaiting trial may be detained, or serving in approved probation hostels or homes, and of persons for appointment as such officers or servants;
(v) towards expenditure incurred by any society engaged in supervising or assisting persons released from a prison, Borstal institution or detention centre as definied in the said Act;
(vi) towards expenditure incurred by any body or person approved by the Secretary of State in the conduct of research into the causes of delinquency and the treatment of offenders, and matters connected therewith;

not exceeding, in the case of any such expenditure as is mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph, fifty per cent. of that expenditure;
(f) of any sums by which grants under section one hundred and seven of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, towards the expenses of councils of counties and large burghs are increased by reason of any provision of the said Act of the present Session;
(g) of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under Part II of the Local Government Act, 1948;


and the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Secretary of State under the said Act of the present Session."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — NURSES (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

8.11 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
It is rather an incident in the House that we now pass from one type of treatment to the consideration of another type of treatment. Bernard Shaw often complains that the party system does not work as well as the local authority system, because people are always divided. But if he had been here today he would realise that a great deal of the work in Parliament is done by general agreement with very little division, as on this particular day, when we are dealing with two important Bills. This one, like the one we have just dealt with, will be non-controversial from the point of view of hon. Members of the House. Most of us have had personal experience as patients of the work of the nursing profession at some time in our lives, and the public as a whole look up to the nurses as a noble band of women who have made it their vocation to care for the sick. Therefore it gives me very great pleasure to move this Bill which deals with the training of nurses.
For many years it has been realised that the community rather took advantage of the nurses. Nurses were overworked and in many cases had far too long spells of duty. In recent times much progress has been made towards improving the remuneration and the conditions of work of the nursing profession. The full realisation of their ambitions in this regard has been somewhat retarded by the necessity of recruiting a much greater number of women to the profession. We live in an age where there is a great scarcity of women in all fields of work, and this has delayed the full realisation of the reforms which we are anxious to make in the working of our hospitals.
The House will recollect that in 1947 the majority report of the Working Party

on Nurses was published. This working party gave great attention to the training and employment of nurses, and its report has been widely regarded as a thorough and able document. One of the aspects which the working party considered particularly important is the wastage in numbers which takes place during the period of training.
The working party reached two major conclusions. The first was that we should strive for a reduction in the period of training to the shortest period compatible with the production of the best nurse. This means that we must attach less importance to the day-to-day services which she gives to the hospital during her period of training. In other words, in the hospital where the nurse was doing the work a great deal of attention was given to using her services rather than to seeing that she got the maximum amount of training in the shortest period of time. The other conclusion was that all nurses should have a common basic training. Only after that training should the nurse proceed to specialise in his or her chosen field.
The Bill which I now present to the House is designed primarily to improve the training of nurses in the light of this report, and it is hoped that the steps to be taken will still further enhance the attraction of the nursing profession to the women of Scotland. Under the 1919 Act the general direction of training and registration of nurses was entrusted to the General Nursing Council of Scotland and no one wants to disturb this arrangement. The Council has discharged its functions with great credit, and what is proposed in this Bill is to make the necessary changes in its constitution to permit developments which are generally agreed to be desirable.
The first Clause, therefore, provides for the reconstitution of the Council. It is proposed to increase it to 26 members. Of these, 13 will be elected by the nurses; 11 will be appointed by the Secretary of State and two will be appointed by the Privy Council. Two of the appointees of the Secretary of State will be nurses, so that the nurses will be 15 out of 26 members. It is generally thought that in present circumstances specific representation should also be given to the specialist fields of nursing, such as fever—and the House might keep in mind that fever nursing in Scotland includes tuberculosis—sick children, mental and mental


defectives. It is also generally agreed that the Council should be reinforced by persons with knowledge of educational methods so that it is proposed that two members should be elected by those sister tutors who hold certificates of training recognised by the General Nursing Council.
Two of the 13 appointed members must be nurses employed either directly by the local health authorities or by voluntary organisations working for them. There must also be doctors and persons with experience in hospital management and in local government. It is also our intention to include persons with experience relevant to the new financial functions provided for in the Bill. Government money will be supplied for that purpose and considerable financial responsibility will rest upon them. The Privy Council are required to give one of their seats to a representative of the Scottish Universities, thus strengthening the educational element on the Council.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: In order to clear up this point, may I ask who will make the Privy Council appointment? What Minister?

Mr. Woodburn: I take it that the Secretary of State for Scotland will have a considerable say in recommending to the Privy Council. If it is to be a Scottish appointment from a Scottish University he will consult the necessary Scottish authorities in giving advice to the Privy Council, which I am quite sure the Council will be wise to take.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Is not it a little disingenuous to call it a Privy Council appointment if it is in fact made by the Secretary of State for Scotland? Why not say the Secretary of State for Scotland?

Mr. Woodburn: It is not the Secretary of State. He will give his advice, but, as in the case of the doctor's advice, the patient might not take it. I think in this case naturally the opinion of Scotland will be consulted, but there is a question of research and there are other questions which do concern the Privy Council and all this will be taken into account in deciding this. As I have said, the Council will have 15 out of the 26 members and this will preserve for the Privy Council the majority of the seats on the Council.
While I am dealing with the General Council, I would call the attention of the House to a new statutory committee provided for under Clause 7. I am jumping a little bit. It is part of the General Council set-up and therefore it is better to consider it at this moment. Under the Nurses (Scotland) Act, 1943, a statutory committee of the council was established for assistant nurses and it is now proposed to add a further statutory committee to be called the Mental Nurses Committee. All matters concerning mental nurses or registered nurses for mental defectives are to be submitted to this committee; with the exception of questions relating to the registration of persons and their removal from or restoration to the registers. The committee is to consist of 11 persons, of whom five will be members of the council, one will be elected by mental nurses, one by nurses for mental defectives and four appointed by the Secretary of State.
I now turn to the second main aspect of the Bill which is the organisation for training at regional levels. In their investigations the working party formed the opinion that there had been a tendency in some hospitals to subordinate the needs of training to meet staffing requirements. As long as the demand for hospital staffs exceeds supply there is, I fear, a great temptation to meet urgent needs in this way: and while the hospital authoritites will themselves wish to guard against it, it is considered desirable to provide special machinery for training purposes at the regional level. In this Bill, therefore, nurse training committees will be established on a regional level, in the first instance at any rate, to take special responsibility for training matters.
At the request of all the interests concerned the functions of these training committees are defined with some precision. Apart from assisting in the planning of nurse training the committees will generally supervise the training of nurses in the area and report to the Council on matters which appear to require attention. The committees will advise and assist the Council on matters referred to them, including the approval of institutions for the purposes of training. In some cases it may be necessary to improve the facilities for training in an area and the Bill empowers the regional nurse training


committee to prepare a scheme for this purpose. In such cases arrangements are made to ensure that the regional hospital board shall be consulted and that any representations they have to make are considered by the General Nursing Council before the scheme is finally approved.
The regional nurse training committees will also be given power to promote research and investigation into matters relating to nurse training. This is an important provision. The working party advocated a fundamental change in the system of nurse training—the substitution of basic training with a common register for training for a number of specialised registers. This has been widely accepted, but such a change cannot be accomplished by a stroke of the pen. Careful planning and experiment in the field will be necessary before the new system can replace the old. It is expected that the nurse training committees, working in harmony with the hospital authorities and with the approval of the General Nursing Council, will carry through the essential preliminary work.
Membership of the regional nurse training committees will be defined in the Order constituting the committees. This method has been adopted because it is not possible to insert in the Bill a precise form of committee which will suit the varying needs of the different areas. The principle is laid down, however, that registered nurses will have a majority of the seats on the committee and the classes to be given representation are also defined.
An important and essential factor in the new scheme is that the finance of training is to be separated from hospital funds generally. The Bill provides that the cost of training of nurses will be defrayed by the nurse training committees who, in turn, will be financed from Exchequer funds through the medium of the General Nursing Council. It is because of this new responsibility involving the distribution of Exchequer moneys that, as mentioned earlier, it is intended to appoint to the Council persons with financial experience and qualifications to enable them to give expert advice on the administration of training grants.
These are the major provisions of the Bill, which are aimed at improving the training of nurses. I believe that such improvement will bring with it a lower

rate of wastage in training and in other ways will make this noble profession even more attractive to the young women of Scotland.
We have also taken the opportunity offered by this Bill to bring about other changes which we believe will be generally welcomed by informed opinion. Clause 8 gives the General Nursing Council wide powers to admit nurses trained abroad and provides that the Council may register such persons if they are satisfied that they have received a proper training. We are very anxious to take advantage of this source of recruitment to the profession and where we are not satisfied that the people are qualified—

Commander Galbraith: Can the Secretary of State say if there will be reciprocal treatment in regard to our nurses in other parts of the world?

Mr. Woodburn: There is no condition of reciprocity, but reciprocity works two ways. It would mean that perhaps we would have to refuse the services of nurses because there were not others going in the other direction. In this case we are anxious that reciprocity should not work, in the sense that we do not wish to part with our own nurses in order to get nurses from abroad. We should much rather keep our own nurses and add to their number any qualified people coming from Canada, Australia or any other country which can supply qualified persons. Therefore, so far as we can see, we are benefiting at the moment. There is nothing against reciprocity and, of course, we are very anxious to have it but we could not make that a condition of the change.
Where the General Nursing Council are not quite satisfied with the applicant's qualifications they may prescribe the additional training and examinations to be taken in this country before they can be registered. This new provision supersedes the present arrangement which is confined to the registration of nurses trained in Commonwealth countries prepared to give reciprocal registration. In view of the shortage of women in nearly all fields of work we feel it wise to enable properly-qualified nurses from abroad to acquire full status in our nursing service.
Secondly, under the existing statutes an appeal against the refusal of the General Nursing Council to approve an institution for training purposes may be made to the Secretary of State. In the altered circumstances created by the National Health Service Act it is proposed in Clause 10 that in future such appeals shall be determined by two or more persons appointed by the Lord President of the Court of Session.
The Bill has been framed only after extensive consultations with all the interests concerned and I believe that, on all major points, it has the support of the nursing organisations in Scotland and of all who have the welfare of our nursing services at heart. I think that I can say that the nursing organisations in Scotland have no objection in principle to any part of the Bill, and to that extent there can be considered to be agreement between the parties. I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman who raised the point which naturally is in the minds of nurses in Scotland, but while they would desire complete reciprocity that is not laid down as an objection which would disqualify us from accepting this Bill as the right thing in the circumstances.
As I said at the beginning, the nursing profession, of all professions, is perhaps one which is regarded by the general public with the greatest affection and the greatest confidence. I hope that girls who have not found a niche for their abilities, or who are not properly utilising their capacities, will consider this profession as one which gives a real interest to those who take part in it. Those of us who know women who have spent their life in this profession realise that they have had a tremendous satisfaction from the wonderful amount of good which they have been able to do to other people. I sometimes think that there is no greater opportunity given to anybody in life than to try to make the sick comfortable and to give happiness and relief from pain to people. The kindness and care of nurses is almost sublime. I hope that many more girls will be attracted to this profession and that they will give their time and energies to the great healing art—to one of the noblest of our professions.

8.28 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am sure that we all re-echo the eloquent words used by the Secretary of State in his opening and closing remarks. The tribute which he paid to the nursing profession will certainly be substantiated by every Member of this House. His desire that as far as possible our Scottish girls should look favourably on this avenue of employment, to put it at its lowest, and service, to put it at its highest, is one which I think we all re-echo.
It is largely from that angle that we must examine this Bill. To what extent will it lead to an increase of the nursing staff in our Scottish hospitals? The machinery which is sketched out, the Council, and so on—these are primarily for the purpose, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of checking wastage and of improving intake—wastage which is, of course, in some ways a good thing. It is a good thing that there should be a turnover in this. The milk of human kindness is not an ever-flowing spring in all of our hearts, and the fact that a certain number of girls go in and, after a reasonable time, go out of the profession is, I think, an advantage in keeping it young and fresh, and up to its enormous responsibilities.

Mr. Woodburn: They may go to another form of nursing.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: They may go to another form of nursing. At any rate, to say that a girl who has got married and started to rear a family of her own comes under the heading of "wastage" is in effect a definition of wastage with which not all sociologists would fully agree. The fact is that it is true, as the Secretary of State has said, that some people devote all their lives to it. They have, as the religious would say, a vocation for this. But there are others who are very well serving the community indeed by putting in a period of work here but not regarding it as the profession in which their whole lives will be exclusively spent. Therefore, we have to examine it from this point of view as well.
The Secretary of State gave, I think, a clear and sufficiently explicit account of the actual machinery of the Bill. The working party's report and the proposals which they brought forward will, I think, be generally accepted. On the whole,


they did receive the acceptance of the profession. However, it is certainly a matter which the House will need to keep under review, because here a very great change has taken place comparable with the change that has taken place in the conditions of other professions, to which conditions this House has devoted far longer hours and, if I may say so, far more acrimonious argument than it has devoted to this numerically far superior profession, which in the practice of medicine, is not inferior in importance even to the learned profession of which I myself was at one time a humble member. I cannot claim any more than an honorary membership now.
The numbers, of course, are very large. Girls to staff 64,000 beds had their status changed when the National Health Service Act went through. The number of nurses employed was 18,465 in the hospitals. They are not enough. It is the fundamental point that at this time, when we have a shortage of capital equipment in so many fields, here we have actually a surplus of capital equipment. We have stone and lime and buildings, the beds, technical apparatus, the equipment—everything but the skilled staff.
Without the skilled staff these other things are perfectly useless. Here it is exceptional, in our difficulties of today, in that there is here a surplus of technical equipment above what can be operated by reason of the shortage of skilled staff; and, therefore, we must bend our minds very closely to seeing how this shortage can be made good. The number of nurses employed at the end of 1948 was, as I said, 18,465. That was an increase on the number in the previous year, but at the end of the year the hospitals estimated their needs still at 6,125 more nurses. That is a large figure and, of course, it has led, as the Secretary of State well knows, to many tragic situations, notably in the tuberculosis field, where, in spite of the fact that in Scotland the tuberculosis graph has turned against us, we have hundreds—indeed, more than hundreds—of beds in the tuberculosis sanatoria unoccupied, while potential patients are still confined to overcrowded houses and are acting as a source of infection to the families with whom they continue to be associated.
The working party made rather an odd diagnosis of the difficulty. They

said that it became clear during the course of the interview that the crux of the whole problem of wastage seemed to lie in the sphere of human relationships, and they put down the reason for wastage, first, to the code of discipline which they said was felt to be unnecessarily severe, and, secondly, to the inadequacy both in quantity and quality of the food, the span and pressure of working hours, and such matters as poor accommodation, insufficient pay, bad recreational facilities and an unnecessary amount of domestic work. If that was so, it is a striking testimony to the voluntary hospital. The wastage in the voluntary hospital was 35 per cent. of the intake and the wastage in the others, was 56 per cent. of the intake; so is it to be supposed that the voluntary hospital successfully solved the problem of accommodation and discipline, span and pressure of working hours and such matters as poor recreational facilities and an unnecessary, amount of domestic work?
I think that the interest of the work also comes into it. If we look at the places where the wastage took place more particularly, we find that it is in those places where there is a less interesting and engrossing type of work. The wastage was, as I have said, 35 per cent. of the intake in the voluntary general hospital and 43 per cent. in the municipal general hospital. It leapt up to 56 per cent. in the case of infectious diseases hospitals, 65 per cent. in tuberculosis sanatoria and 82 per cent. in mental hospitals.
I think that indicates—I am not pressing a party point, in fact I am refraining from pressing it—that the difference between the much heavier wastage in the local authority hospital as compared with the voluntary hospital is not entirely due to the more successful system of the voluntary hospital but to the character of the work. I am stressing that point. I am giving hon. and right hon. Gentlemen that point. I think that it would be unfair to claim that, although naturally I am entitled to my own opinion. I think that in some way there was a greater flexibility in the great voluntary hospital and that the relationships were less rigid than in the local authority hospital, but I do not wish to stress that too much because I think that the quality of the work also came into it.
We still have this problem to deal with, particularly in the case of the tuberculosis hospital. There is undoubtedly an element of fear here, and it is not entirely unjustified. The causes of wastage through sickness, for instance, is 12 per cent. in tuberculosis sanatoria as against 9 per cent. in infectious diseases hospitals and 8 per cent. in mental hospitals. That is 12 per cent. of a higher rate of wastage. Already the wastage, as I have said, came to something like 65 per cent. It is true that there is a higher rate of wastage through sickness in the voluntary hospitals, but that is a higher rate of wastage with a smaller rate of gross wastage. The wastage due to sickness is 18 per cent. in the voluntary hospitals and 17 per cent. in the municipal hospitals; but, as I have previously pointed out, that is out of a wastage of 35 per cent. in the one case and the much higher figure of 65 per cent. in the other case.
Now, somehow or other we want to be able to remove that. It is partly psychological, but there is a little more in it than that. I remember when I first went to take a tuberculosis dispensary in the Chest Hospital in London; when I heard the storm of coughing in the dispensary my heart sank. In spite of all that one is told about there being no danger, and all the rest of it. I could not help feeling—and, mind you, I had been through the war on the Western Front before that—that this was not the sort of experience that I could go into with any light heart or joy.
There must be recognition that this is a thing to which danger attaches. I do not wish to stress it too much, and I do not want to discourage people from going into it, but we are now talking to an important technical audience, and I think it very desirable that we should direct attention towards removing, in every way, any apprehension that might be felt by the girls or their parents when we are trying to get the staffs of the sanatoria brought up to strength. It may well be that protective measures of one kind or another—perhaps protective inoculation—might be desirable, because I am sure that until we remove this fear entirely we shall not have dissipated one of the factors which leads people to stay out of T.B. nursing and to prefer other forms of nursing.
We must somehow or other get a more engrossing and interesting sector into the work and life of these nurses. The great joy of any medical man, or any person engaged in the work of medicine, either in nursing or anywhere else, is to see people getting better; the stimulus is to see the beds empty, the patients walking about in dressing gowns, and finally going out of the ward, and the feeling that there is a rapid turnover and that people are passing out of the hospital. That is an enormous stimulus. It is well known, for instance, in medicine that the skin ward is a gloomy sort of place, because as a rule a skin patient is in the hospital for a long, long time.

Dr. Morgan: Only sometimes.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Only sometimes, yes, but I think one would say that they are stubborn conditions to clear up, sometimes taking a long, long time, and any patient who has been in hospital a long time has a certain depressing effect upon the staff, as well as upon the other patients.

Dr. Morgan: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has raised the point about the fear of infection and the protective measures that can be taken to get rid of that fear. There is another and very important factor. Is there not also the factor that no provision whatever is made for the recognition of, say, the infective disease of tuberculosis being regarded as an industrial injury, and as one that should be subject to what we used to know in the past as workmen's compensation, for which no provision is now made? Nurses who get infected in the course of and as a result of their work should have provision made for them and should not be put on the scrap heap.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If I remember aright, only yesterday the hon. Gentleman raised the same point with his redoubtable right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, who asked that we should keep our eye on the ball. I think the hon. Gentleman is quite right to bring forward the point he wishes to make on every possible occasion, for it is in that way that reforms are made, but he will forgive me if I do not follow him along that line tonight.
I do not think we wish to spend too long on the Bill itself tonight. The


interesting points will come later on in the review of the Bill. But I will say this: that such figures as I have been able to get about recruitment—perhaps the Lord Advocate, either now or at a later date, can check them—show that recruitment is not perhaps as good as we had hoped. The number of general nurses placed on the register during 1947 and 1948, which are the latest years I have been able to get, are 1,027 and 856, respectively. In the case of fever nurses, the figures are 217 in 1947 and 233 in 1948. The total for 1947 was 1,399, that is those placed upon the register, and 1,251 in 1948. As for the intake coming along, the entries for the preliminary examination were 706 in 1947 and 667 in 1948. The entries for the final examination were 1,374 in 1947 and 1,217 in 1948.
It may be that the later figures show a more reassuring trend. We should be very glad if we could have some information on them. Briefly, I would say that the merging of all the Scottish hospitals into one system, and in particular the absorption of the great teaching hospitals into the general hospital system of the country, is an experiment which is still sub judice. It is not by any means certain that this is going to be the most satisfactory way to deal with the problem. It is interesting that in England a totally different approach has been attempted. The personalities at the teaching hospitals have now been meticulously preserved. We shall have to make sure whether the contrary line is going to be an advantage in Scotland.
The great voluntary hospitals have no difficulty in getting nurses. They have queues for their waiting lists. The great hospitals, such as the Edinburgh Royal, the Glasgow Royal, the Glasgow Western, the Glasgow Victoria and the Aberdeen Infirmary, have no difficulty whatever in getting girls. It is to some extent because they have been the pace-makers in the past. I trust that the new system is not going to pull back the pacemakers to the bottom level. I trust very much that this will be watched with great care, because one would say offhand that we have two systems, one of which has no difficulty in getting recruits, while the other has. Prima facie, it is not the most satisfactory approach to

abolish the system which has no difficulty in getting recruits and merging it with the one that has. Prima facie one would say it is a step without advantage that needs to be examined very closely in the years immediately ahead. Meanwhile, we on this side have every sympathy with the objects of the Bill. We think the machinery is satisfactory, although we may have some Amendments to bring forward at a later stage. We shall certainly give it an unopposed Second Reading.

8.49 p.m.

Miss Herbison: The Secretary of State and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel. Elliot) have spent part of their time dealing with the recruitment of nurses and the very serious wastage in the nursing profession. I was very interested in the last point of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman about the great voluntary hospitals in Scotland having waiting lists of entrants for this profession. He suggested that this was perhaps because they had been the pace-makers in the past, and that it might have been a bad thing to put these voluntary hospitals into the new system.
The conclusions I have reached about the queues at these hospitals are different from those reached by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. It was said that the nurses trained at the Glasgow Royal or the Edinburgh Royal or the Glasgow Western Hospitals had very much better chances of promotion. It was not always true that their training was better than that which nurses received in other hospitals in Scotland, but they did have that prestige and it is for that reason that the voluntary hospitals have never had any difficulty in getting the nurses they required. I hope that the provisions of the Bill will lead to the further recruitment of nurses. We have had the buildings and beds, but there has been a serious lack of human material.
I also hope that the Bill will lessen the wastage of nurses. It has been said that there is a 35 per cent. wastage in the voluntary hospitals—or seven out of 20—and that the figure is higher for other hospitals. I disagree with the statement that human relationships are not the most important reason for that wastage.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I said that the wastage is less from that cause than it is in other hospitals. I concede the point that the character of the work may have something to do with it.

Miss Herbison: I had a little experience as a nurse, and when I spoke on the Second Reading of the National Health Service (Scotland) Bill I had in my possession a letter from a Glasgow nurse, whom I did not know personally. She said that although remuneration was important there were other things far more important to many nurses, such as human relationships. Until there is a change in the system where the probationer is on the lowest rung and the nurse who started a few months before her has some power over her, and so on up to the rank of charge sister, we shall have to contend with the difficulties of recruitment and wastage.
I see that by Clause 2 regional nurse training committees may be set up, and I am sorry that the word "may" has been put into the Bill. This provision is one of the most important if we are to succeed in getting the best conditions for the nurses who are recruited. I wonder whether these committees will have any jurisdiction over the entrance examination for nurses. I have in mind the case of a highly intelligent girl from my own village who went to one of the Glasgow infirmaries. She sat for this entrance examination and she was rejected. Not only was her intelligence high, but she had a very pleasant disposition and was rather nice to look at. I feel that the nursing profession in Glasgow lost a very good recruit. I should like an examination made of the examinations which are set for recruits. It is not that I want a lower standard of entrance to this very important profession, but I want to ensure that those people who are willing to enter it and who have high intelligence are not kept out because of some narrow examinations.
In Clause 4 (2) a suggestion is made for a scheme of training and examination. When I first read it I wondered if this was going to mean a lowering of the standard. I am still not very sure. In educational matters I am all against rigidity in any form of examination, but we have to be very careful that we have a really good standard in this matter of the training of nurses. I am wondering

if this has been put into the Bill because of the difficulty in isolation hospitals. Perhaps the Lord Advocate will consider this point when he comes to reply, or it may be raised on the Committee stage.
If we are to introduce this new type of examination, and have two types running at the same time, how is it going to be regarded by the nursing profession? Will there not be a feeling amongst some that the original form of training and examination will continue to be regarded as the better form, and when it comes to promotion will there be any differentiation between those people who have had different training and different examinations? These are matters which we must examine during the Committee stage of this Bill.
Clause 7 sets up a Mental Nurses Committee. I understand that there may be some objection to this Clause by nurses in Scotland. My experience—and it was a very short experience during one of my university holidays when many Scottish students worked as I did in a mental hospital for two months—of mental hospitals and through contacts with a big mental hospital in my constituency tells me that there are problems for nurses in mental work that are not found in any other type of hospital work in Scotland. For that reason I feel that it is an excellent thing that this Mental Nurses Committee is to be set up.
The last point I want to make is on registration of nurses training abroad. There has been criticism from our nurses in Scotland. In going carefully through the Bill, I find that there are safeguards that will ensure that those nurses, who have had their training abroad, will not be of a lower standard and will be at least comparable with the standards of the nurses trained in Britain. On this question of reciprocity, I feel that we in this House cannot legislate for what other countries may do. It is true that we want to keep our nurses here if possible, but this is a democratic country and if our nurses wish to go to other countries then I hope that, since we have given a lead in the British House of Commons, it may be followed in other countries, and that there will be legislation that will allow of this reciprocity.
In the teaching profession we have a scheme for the exchange of teachers with the Commonwealth and lately with the


United States of America. That year of exchange is very good. I hope that in the future, as a result of the recommendations of the councils that are being set up under the Bill, we might encourage exchanges of nurses between this country and other countries.
The committees will have upon them a good proportion of the people who are actually doing the nursing work in Scotland. That is of the very greatest importance. I sometimes wish that in many of our industries the councils connected with them would have a greater proportion of workers as their members. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the provisions of the Bill. I hope that the Bill will also help the recruitment of nurses and, in a very short time, will cut down the wastage that takes place.
Nurses, in Scotland and anywhere else in the world, deserve the greatest help that they can get from anybody who can give it. I have not had the experience of being a patient and having a nurse to look after me, but I have had some experience of conditions in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary where my brother is at the present time. His praise of the nurses who have been looking after him and the other patients in that hospital is very high indeed. These women all over Scotland do very fine and important work. I hope that the Bill will help their work and that they will be given every encouragement in the future by all the departments which have anything to do with them.

9.2 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: In welcoming the Bill I would join with the Secretary of State and with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) in paying tribute to the very excellent work that is being done by our nurses in Scotland at the present time, often in circumstances of great difficulty. I hope that the Bill will assist that most important profession by providing it with better training facilities. The Bill is mainly a machinery Bill and depends for its effect entirely upon the powers which are used by the General Nursing Council and the Secretary of State. I hope that new and better schemes of training will be introduced as a result of it.
I understand from what the Secretary of State has said, and indeed from what

I have heard elsewhere, that in the framing of the Measure there has been close consultation with representatives of the nurses, and that a very substantial amount of agreement exists in the matter. Nevertheless, points of criticism have been brought to my notice by nurses living in my constituency and I should like to refer to one or two of them. Some were mentioned by the hon. Lady the Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison). Before I deal with those points I would like to ask the Lord Advocate a question arising out of the Secretary of State's opening speech. Why do the Privy Council have to appoint two Members of the General Nursing Council? I should have thought it would have been better for the Secretary of State to appoint the whole 13 non-elected members. It seems a little odd that there should be this division. The Secretary of State gave no reason for it.
Returning to the points on which doubt has been cast by individual nurses, probably the most important is that concerning registration. There seems to be some feeling of apprehension among nurses that they are losing some right by the incorporation of Clause 8 which does away with Section 6 of the 1919 Act which provided for reciprocity. I do not take any narrow view about this. Having regard to the well-known shortage of nurses in Scotland we would be well advised to encourage the drift of fully qualified and properly trained nurses into our country, but at the same time I feel that the Government ought to do everything possible to ensure that a Scottish trained nurse going overseas gets similar treatment. That should particularly be the case in the event of a Scottish trained nurse going to one of the Dominions.
Consider the example of Canada, the Dominion most closely linked with Scotland When I was in Canada two years ago I learnt, very much to my surprise, that the British medical degree does not hold good there and that no British doctor, however eminent he may be in his profession here, may practise in Canada without taking a course of training and examinations prescribed by the Canadian authorities. I should like to know if the same thing exists in the case of nurses, or if it is possible for a Scottish nurse to go to Canada and take up her vocation there.

Mr. Woodburn: In case there is any misunderstanding, I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that nothing appeals more to a Canadian doctor than to come to Edinburgh and take his fellowship there.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Yes, but I meant that a British doctor cannot practise in Canada without taking certain examinations and conforming to a certain course of study there. I see that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) shakes his head, but I can assure him that I was told that in Canada. Perhaps the law has been altered in the last two years.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is a little out of date. Only about two provinces in Canada now stick to the old arrangements.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Ontario and Quebec were the two provinces I visited. Maybe further west it is different. It would be interesting to know if the Secretary of State has in hand any negotiations with the appropriate Ministries in the Dominions on the question of safeguarding the position of our nurses as far as possible. I believe a few nurses have gone to New Zealand. I do not know whether they are allowed to practise there without any further examinations or not.
The other point to which my attention has been drawn is one to which the hon. Lady the Member for North Lanark referred, the establishment of the Mental Nurses Committee under Clause 7. I have no strong view on this because it is difficult to a layman to say whether or not it is a valuable provision, but it seems to have aroused a certain amount of disagreement among nurses. It is felt by some that there is adequate representation of all the different types of nurses in the enlarged General Nursing Council and that it is a mistake to provide a separate committee for a certain grade or class of nurses.
There are so many committees in existence now that we ought to exercise restraint in adding to their number, and it would be well if the Secretary of State trod warily in this matter because, although there may be a sound case for the establishment of a separate Mental Nurses Committee, might it not also be that there are equally good cases for the establishment of separate committees for

infectious diseases nurses and nurses associated with the care of tuberculosis? Indeed, if we study the working party report and the figures laid down in Tables E and G of the Appendix, we find that the percentage of wastage of student nurses in the case of tuberculosis hospitals and infectious diseases hospitals is high; not quite so high as in the case of mental hospitals, but disquietingly high.
Moreover, it will be within the recollection of all hon. Members who sit for Scottish divisions that not so long ago we had a serious Debate upstairs on the subject of the incidence of tuberculosis in Scotland. It would seem to me that any type of nurse such as those concerned with tuberculosis, faced with special problems might feel entitled to a special committee. If, therefore, we open the door to the mental nurses we might well be faced with a request for a separate committee from some other types of nurses as well.
I think it was the Secretary of State in his opening speech who said that the expenses of training incurred by the regional training committees and by the General Nursing Council would be defrayed out of Exchequer funds. That is right and proper, but it has been represented to me that much of the incidental expenses which will be incurred by members of the General Nursing Council and by the Mental Nurses Committee—by that I mean allowances to make up for loss of earnings, travelling expenses, subsistence allowances and so on—will have to be found from the funds at the disposal of the General Nursing Council. These funds will be drawn from fees and contributions from nurses who are not as a rule people in affluent circumstances, and it may involve some higher contribution.
It is felt by the nurses—and I think they have a strong case—that while it is equitable that the General Nursing Council should find the sums necessary to meet the expenses of all the elected members of the Council, the Secretary of State might look after his own nominees and the non-elected members and provide for any expenses they incur in attending meetings and carrying out their duties. The request seems to me to be a modest and fair one, so I hope the Secretary of State will give it his sympathetic consideration.
With those observations I shall leave any further points I have to make until the next stage, and I conclude by giving the Bill a general welcome.

9.13 p.m.

Dr. Morgan: I hesitate to intrude in a Debate on a Scottish Bill but because of my association with Scotland I hope the House will pardon me. One of the main problems raised today is that of the recruitment of nurses, and unless this problem, in Scotland and elsewhere, is tackled in a really scientific way there will be difficulties. It is not a question of training; it is not really a question of the type of hospital, it is not really a question of the attractive surroundings of the buildings. It is one of status. It is one of institutional interchange, of the right of organisation, which is denied even now to nurses in many institutions. Most of all, it is the fact of letting them have a career in a service which is recognised throughout Great Britain; a career in which they can move from special nursing to special nursing after they have had their general nursing training and gained a certificate.
And, of course, the question of human relations—although the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) tried to minimise it—is of tremendous importance throughout a nurse's career.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I did not wish to give the impression that human relationship did not matter. I certainly give it a place of the highest importance. What I do say is that in summing up the causes I thought it was unwise to leave out the interesting, or otherwise, nature of the work.

Dr. Morgan: My point is that human relationships come first—

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Certainly.

Dr. Morgan: —and the right organisation comes second. Even now, amongst certain institutions in Scotland, can be seen a tremendous difference in the whole of the nursing arrangements—welfare, diet, discipline, time off duty and the way in which nurses are left to themselves. There should be a certain uniformity in the method by which the whole status of nurses is fixed. They should be given an opportunity, as in the outside world,

of living not always practically under supervision and on duty. That is my main point on the question of the recruitment of nurses.
I congratulate the Secretary of State on the Bill except in one particular: it is overloaded with representation of the Secretary of State. In almost every council or committee there is a majority against the elected members. Take the council, which has 13 elected members out of 26. Why cannot there be 18 elected members and 8 non-elected?

Mr. Woodburn: That proposition is very simple. It is the rule of the country generally that the people administering public money must have some responsibility to the person who is responsible to Parliament. That is the underlying principle here.

Dr. Morgan: Parliament is responsible to the nation for the expenditure of public funds. The principle of elected representatives having responsibility and some regard for public finances is, surely, established by the existence of this institution itself. It is all very well to have a certain official representation in minor institutions, but an officially appointed majority should not always be insisted upon. To have 13 elected members on a council on which a similar number are appointed by the Secretary of State is an overloading of official representation. Amongst the 13 elected members there is, quite rightly, differentiation between the different types of nurses.
Again, of 11 members on the Mental Nurses Committee, five are from the Council which has a high proportion of official representation. Why not let the Mental Nurses Committee be a really democratically-elected body, instead of being overloaded by representation from the Secretary of State? I know that by including on this committee five members from the Council and four nominated by the Secretary of State there may be a saving of money, but in a Bill of this kind a democratic spirit, at least, could be shown.

Mr. Woodburn: The purpose of the Secretary of State having nominees is to ensure that other representatives from the community are included. It is not merely a syndicalist organisation run solely by people engaged in the profession. The country has never accepted


the syndicalist idea that people in a profession should have absolute control of it. The public are entitled to see that the public and other organisations representing their own interests are included in these bodies.

Dr. Morgan: The Secretary of State is getting himself into very great difficulty, for of the four representatives on the Mental Nursing Committee whom he is to appoint one is to be a matron, two are representatives of the registered mental nurses, and the other is to be a doctor, a medical man. The only person not associated with this profession is the medical man, who represents an allied profession. The other four, appointed by the Secretary of State, are a matron and registered mental nurses. The Secretary of State is making tremendous difficulty for himself by saying that the people put on these committees shall be representative of other interests when they are also representative of the nursing profession. The same happens in regard to the very excellent regional training committees. I wish that instead of appointment by the regional hospital board a wider representation were allowed.
Nurses have complained to me about the threat that their registration book may not be available for them at any time to see whether they are on the register, or to see whether other persons purporting to be nurses are on the register. They want to check that and to see that the registration facilities are available to the public and the profession in almost every region. I think this is a very good Bill and a great improvement on the past. If the Secretary of State were so to organise the profession as in London, from the point of view of teaching for both mental and general nursing, in a way to allow nurses to have better opportunities for organisational facilities and elected representatives, he would be doing a good thing for the nursing profession in Scotland.

9.22 p.m.

Commander Galbraith: It appeared to me that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan), instead of bringing to bear the heavy artillery which we know he is capable of handling, on the principles of the Bill, has been bringing some lighter artillery against points which I believe we should discuss

on Committee stage. Indeed, what has come out of the excellent Debate we have had is that no one has really attacked the principles of the Bill at all and the greater part of the argument has been directed to supporting the principles of the Bill or to what I believe are Committee points.
I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), and with the Secretary of State for Scotland that the nursing profession is one of the noblest professions in the world and certainly in our country. It holds, has held and, we believe, will continue to hold, the affection of the general public. In days gone by, nurses underwent a very rigorous form of training and the talent and capacity of nurses came out of what I can only suggest was a very heavy ordeal. Our nurses in Scotland are known throughout the world as of the very best and we are all extremely proud of them.
Our trouble today is that we are short of nurses. No doubt there are good reasons for that and we have had some laid before us in regard to human relations, training and one thing and another. After all, times change and people's views change and we have to allow for those changes. I very much welcome the appointment of the regional training committees, which may do a great deal of good. The whole idea behind the Bill and the principles on which it stands, is surely to improve the training and make nursing more attractive and in these ways to endeavour to stop the wastage which is occurring particularly among the student nurses in their early years.
My right hon. and gallant Friend said on the subject of wastage, that a reasonable wastage in later years may be a good thing but in the initial stages it is very disturbing indeed to find the percentage of wastage to which my right hon. and gallant Friend referred. I have no doubt at all that one of the ways to stop that wastage is to see that there is considerable variety during the years of training. We all welcome this Bill, we hope it will be a great success, that it will maintain the reputation of our Scottish nurses and will give us that additional number for which we long and which is required for the proper management and equipment of our hospitals.

9.26 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. John Wheatley): I have particular pleasure in joining in the acceptance of this Bill. I am especially pleased that it has been so generally accepted in all parts of the House. Before saying any more, I should disclose my interest. I was Chairman of the Scottish Nurses Salaries Committee for quite a period before I became a Law Officer. I came in close contact with the nursing profession on these very matters which we are discussing, and I can pride myself on having taken a very deep interest in these matters. I feel that this Bill will be a very effective piece of machinery to enable us to effect the ends to which we have all referred, in particular to improve the intake and secondly to save the loss from the profession.
Like the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), in all my connection with the nursing profession I have rather demurred from the use of the word "wastage." It has become a colloquial term and it is very unfortunate, particularly in the case quoted by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. If a nurse leaves the profession in order to be married it can hardly be said that that constitutes a social wastage. I think that the machinery set up by this Bill will improve the intake of nurses into the profession and at the same time will prevent that decline in numbers, because the more we can recognise the status of nurses and the more we recognise the great contribution which they make to our national life the more people will go into the nursing profession and the more people will stay in it.
We must pay great tribute, as did the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) to some of the nurses who came through the ordeal in the past, when nursing was regarded as a vocation, and some people seemed to take the view unfortunately that because it was a vocation one had to undergo the life of a hermit and a martyr. Most of us have a certain view as to who was responsible for that. I do not think there is any use in having a post-mortem examination. Let us look to the future and not deal in recriminations. In saying that, while I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Lanark

(Miss Herbison) with regard to her complaints about a hierarchy, because by the nature of the profession there must be an element of hierarchy in it, I think that if there were a new approach from the very top right down and a recognition of the human element in the profession, we could get away from those pettifogging little restraints which sometimes make all the difference between life being bearable and unbearable, particularly in institutional life.
There is only one suggestion I should like to make when I have the opportunity to do so. Although we have not yet reached the standard of perfection, if we can effect more visits to the many of our hospitals in which conditions such as have been suggested have been introduced, and let young girls coming out of school see something of the life of a nurse, see the type of bedroom she may have to herself and some of the recreational rooms which some of the better hospitals have, and the facilities available to the nurses both on and off duty, we might attract more people into the nursing profession. Local education authorities, some of whom are doing good work in this direction, might expand that particular line of encouragement.
The feature of this Bill, I think, is that it takes a further step in the recognition of the status of nurses. For instance, let us take the student nurses. Mark you, there was—I almost used the word "wastage" because it comes to one's tongue so readily—there was a large percentage of this loss from the profession amongst the student nurses. Because student nurses were often put to tasks that were not appropriate to nurses, because of the shortage not only of nurses but of domestic staff, student nurses often were allotted duties not appropriate to a student.
First, we took one step about that by referring to their financial return as a training allowance rather than as a salary, which indicated the student aspect of their work. Now, I think, by the institution of basic training, which is desiderated by Clause 2, we are making it quite clear that they are not general employees available for any type of work: and we trust that by giving that definite status to the student nurses at the very start we shall save that wastage which


has been characteristic in the years gone by.
It is so essential that we should get an increase in the number of nurses at present. Certainly for some years past, when I was particularly associated with the nursing profession, the profession suffered from a vicious circle. We had set up the nurses' charter of conditions of service for nurses, over and above improving their salaries, but we could not put all the conditions into operation because of the shortage of nurses, and we could not increase the number of nurses until we had put the conditions into operation.
So we were faced with that vicious circle. I am glad to think we are getting away from that, and the intake of nurses has, I think, increased appreciably since the war, as compared with what it was pre-war. The figures given by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman are substantially correct, but I do think that there is an increase, on the whole, in the number of people who are coming in. However, we are still needing many more young people to come into this profession.
At the same time we ought to pay tribute to the part-time nurses who have stepped into the breach and made it possible for many hospitals to carry on under conditions which otherwise would have made them unable to carry on. [An HON. MEMBER: "A very bad system."] My hon. Friend says it is a very bad system, but on the other hand it means all the difference in existing circumstances between getting nursing treatment and not, and so I think we are justified in adopting this system. There is a gratifying increase in part-time nurses, an increase from 2,208 in 1948 to 3,500 in 1949.
Then we come to difficulties in certain branches of nursing, and I want to deal particularly with tuberculosis nursing, which was especially referred to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. Knowing his keen interest in these matters I am perfectly satisfied that nothing he said was intended to discourage the nurses from going into that particular branch of nursing. However, I was rather apprehensive—and I am not saying this in a critical sense—rather apprehensive lest some of his words might have had

that effect unwittingly. I am quite sure it was not intended, but in case there is that danger I am sure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will be pleased to know that I want to remove any such doubt. This is a matter which I investigated, not for the purposes of the Second Reading of this Bill, but when I was associated with the nursing profession. The information I got was this: if normal precautions are taken there is no more danger of the contraction of tuberculosis by a nurse doing tuberculosis nursing than there is by a nurse doing any other form of nursing—if the proper precautions are taken.
Another reason why there was a certain fear in the minds of nurses with regard to this type of nursing was the fact that a special payment was made in respect of this type of nursing. It was not peculiar to this type of nursing. Other specialised forms of nursing also attracted special payments. I think that we all want to try to disabuse the minds of nurses that such extra payment in tuberculosis nursing savours of the nature of danger money. I think that these special payments were a recognition of the various factors to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, and particularly to the fact that tuberculosis nursing is a most tedious form of nursing.
As has been rightly pointed out, in dealing with surgical cases the patients come into hospital, are operated upon, and are out again perhaps within a fortnight. They are in and out, and it makes life more interesting because once the operation is over the patient is often cheery and more responsive. In the case of tuberculosis nursing, the treatment may take a long period, perhaps years, and the patient by the nature of the disease and the long period of treatment may get a little difficult at times, which makes the nursing more difficult. I think that it is right that this not so attractive form of nursing, although no more dangerous form of nursing, should attract these particular payments.
I do not think that the figures quoted with regard to sickness by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman cut across what I had said, because rather curiously the percentage of sickness was in inverse ratio to the percentage of wastage, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman called it. Roughly speaking, those groups


which had a smaller percentage of wastage had a higher percentage of sickness, and those with a higher percentage of sickness had a lower percentage of wastage. I am quite sure that sickness is dissociated from any contagion which may be sustained as a result of the work.
With regard to the actual recruitment and training, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman very properly said what we all know to be the fact, that there are certain hospitals which attract young nurses going into training. They would sooner remain on the waiting list to go, for instance, into the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, or the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, or the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow, or the Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, than go into another hospital which had not the same status or prestige. I think that is unfortunate in one way because it means a delay in the training of nurses. I agree with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that nothing should be done to diminish the status and prestige of these hospitals, but rather that we should try to build up the status and prestige of the other hospitals, and inculcate into the minds of potential students the idea that it does not really matter whether they go to one or the other because their training will be just as good.
It is like the position in schools. Certain schools have a certain reputation and people want their children to go to those schools. The children may get as good if not a better education in other schools without the glamour attached to them, but some people must send their children to a particular school. We hope that we shall bring up the other hospitals to the same prestige. Many may be entitled by the work which they do and by the training which they give to the same prestige, but the larger ones naturally attract more attention.
The hon. Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison) dealt with a number of points which I think are more Committee points than otherwise: whether, for instance, the Nurses Training Committee should have any say in examination and things of that nature. I am not quite so sure about that point because it seems to me that the people training the young nurses are hardly the people to have a say in the examinations. The G.N.C. is an independent body and so far as that is concerned is ex hypothesi independent

from the point of view of the examinations.
Now I come to the three points raised by the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison), two of which, I think, were also raised by the hon. Member for North Lanark. First, is the question of the Mental Nurses Committee. I think that there is a very good reason for the establishment of a separate Mental Nurses Committee. We must remember that under the 1943 Act a special committee was set up for assistant nurses, recognising that they had special difficulties and special problems, and that it was better to have a special committee.
Well, we are taking the same view with regard to mental nurses, because mental nursing is much more a branch by itself as compared with fever nursing, tuberculosis nursing, and other forms which might be grouped together under general nursing. It is rather curious to note that historically, before the National Health Service came into operation, and when we had the various committees for Scotland and England to fix nurses salaries, within the Scottish nurses' salaries committee we had a special mental nurses' salaries committee, because we recognised that they had special problems and special difficulties, and that it was better to have people more conversant with those particular difficulties and problems on that committee as distinct from the general body. The mental nurses were therefore more fully represented on that than they were on the general body.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Would it be true to say that the majority opinion of nurses prefers the arrangement that is embodied in the Bill?

The Lord Advocate: I think so. In my experience I have never found great rivalry between the general nurses' committee and the mental nurses' committee, but having regard to the different circumstances I think the separate committees were fully justified.
On the question of reciprocity, one thing we have to bear in mind is that we are still short of nurses. It is not much use our saying unanimously in this House that we must try to attract as many nurses as we can while at the same time maintaining on the Statute Book a provision


which might prevent the flow into this country of nurses whom we could absorb, and want to absorb. At the present time the law is that these nurses cannot come in unless there are reciprocal arrangements in the country of their origin. It may well be that there are countries with fully qualified nurses who want to come to this country, but with whom we do not have reciprocal arrangements. In this time of shortage are we to do without these nurses merely because we have not got reciprocal arrangements?
Let me say here and now that we should like to see all these other countries having reciprocal arrangements; but we are not going to make it a sine qua non of absorbing the nationals of a country into our own nursing profession here, if they have the requisite standard. Of course, if they fall short of the requisite standard provision is made in the Bill for further training in this country to bring them up to our standard. Accordingly, I think we have taken a very commonsense point of view here, and while expressing the hope that reciprocity will be observed in other countries we cannot in our present difficulties make it a sine qua non.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Will the Lord Advocate follow that up, not leaving it just at hopes but entering into negotiations, particularly with the Dominions, on this matter?

The Lord Advocate: I am not so sure that this is so much a matter—I am expressing only a personal view just now—for any Minister of this country as for the General Nursing Council themselves to try to take up. It is very much a domestic matter, because questions of qualifications are matters more appropriate to the General Nursing Council than, perhaps, the Secretary of State. We have said that we may not recognise the qualifications of another country and will demand a further examination before we will absorb their nurses into our nursing service. However, I am informed that, for instance, there is reciprocity with Canada, with the exception of two Provinces, and with New Zealand and Australia. That is my information, and that substantially covers the Dominions.
The third point was in relation to expenses, and we were asked why the nurses should have an imposition to cover the expenses of the non-elected members of various committees. There are four sources of income in connection with the work done by the General Nursing. Council in respect of various duties: maintaining the register, conducting the examinations, inspecting institutions, and administering the nurses' training scheme. The Government pay considerably towards the expense of these functions, but these functions really form part of a co-ordinated whole, and the nursing profession benefit from the work of all the members of the General Council in carrying out the various functions I have enumerated. Therefore, if the nurses are getting some of the benefit, not only from one function but the four functions, it is only right that they should share in the cost.
I can give the assurance that any imposition will not be one of any magnitude. The annual registration fee at the present time is 2s. 6d. This we are not commuting at the nurses' request, although this is being done in England. I am informed that a penny on the registration fee produces a yield of £100. If we have regard to the number of nonelected members on the committee, the number of meetings and the part of the expenses which would have to be borne out of the registration fee, I am sure that any increase on the registration fee would be the minimal. I can give an assurance that there is no question of any immediate increase as the result of this particular feature.
The hon. and gallant Member asks why the Privy Council should appoint the two members and not the Secretary of State. I have not been able to get far enough back in my researches to find out the answer. I suggest that the next time the hon. and gallant Member sees Lord Alness, who was not only a Lord Justice Clerk and Lord Advocate as well, but Secretary of State in 1919 when the General Nursing Council was set up under the Act, he will find out why it was decided then that the Privy Council should make such appointments. I am not at all sure why it was, but if the hon. and gallant Member sees Lord Alness first he will find out before I do. Nevertheless, that has been the custom.


Previously it was one member, but now, owing to the extension of the council, it is increased to two. I am sure that no one has any fears that the powers will be exercised improperly. I can quite understand the hon. and gallant Member asking why it should not be the Secretary of State, but then my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) would ask why it should be the Secretary of State, and we should get no reconciliation.
Like others, I should like to commend this Bill. I trust it will have the effect we so earnestly desire of putting the nursing profession in Scotland in its proper position, making it attractive to the young people of our country to come in and do a great social work, not under conditions of martyrdom and hermitage, in giving that succour which those of us who are ill so badly need.

Orders of the Day — NURSES (SCOTLAND) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[King's Recommendation signified.]

[Major MILNER in the Chair.]

Resolved:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to reconstitute the General Nursing Council for Scotland (hereinafter re-referred to as "the Council") it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) all expenses incurred by the Council with the approval of the Secretary of State which are attributable to defraying expenditure incurred by regional nurse-training committees constituted under the said Act;
(b) any contributions made by the Secretary of State towards the expenses of the Council in inspecting and approving, for the purposes of rules made by the Council relating to the training of nurses, institutions vested in him; and
(c) any fees and allowance paid to a person appointed under the said Act by the Lord President of the Court of Session to determine a matter relating to the refusal of the Council to approve an institution for the purposes of any such rules as aforesaid or to a withdrawal by the Council of approval given by them for those purposes to an institution, or to the variation or revocation of a scheme for the training of nurses approved under the said Act."—[Mr. Woodburn.]

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING, EDINBURGH

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. G. Wallace.]

9.50 p.m.

Mr. Willis: During both the Debates we have held today the problem of the housing situation in Scotland has been stressed, first, as it affects juvenile delinquency and, second, in its relation to the alarming increase in tuberculosis in our country. I am, therefore, glad to have this opportunity of raising once again the question of housing in Edinburgh. In spite of all the efforts of the Government—and I fully appreciate what they have done, particularly in comparison with the efforts of previous Governments—this problem is still the most important for thousands of people in my division and for many more thousands in the City of Edinburgh as a whole.
The desperate plight of the homeless and the wastage of human life in the squalid areas of our large towns constitute a challenge which we cannot afford to neglect. Moreover, the increase in tuberculosis in Scotland intensifies that challenge. About an hour ago I received a letter from a Minister of the Church in Scotland saying that one of his parishioners had died last week from pulmonary tuberculosis, at her home. She was one of a family of five, four members of which were living permanently at home in a house of two rooms, with an outside communal lavatory. The oldest son and the father had to sleep in one room and the mother and daughter of 13 had to sleep with the daughter, who has since died. These tragic cases are only too frequent today.
Against that background I have been alarmed at the recent trend of housing activities in Edinburgh itself, and also at the allocation of houses for Edinburgh next year. During the past 18 months the total number of houses, permanent and temporary, completed per month has fallen and the number of men engaged in house building has drastically decreased. These are facts which we cannot afford to ignore. Last year, in Edinburgh, there were completed about 2,800, temporary and permanent houses. This year the monthly figures have fallen from 205 at the beginning of the year to


135 for the last month for which the figures have been published. So far as I can see we shall only complete about 1,500 houses this year. That is a drop of almost a half. What is even more alarming is that the allocation for next year is even lower—1,200, which is quite inadequate for the needs of Edinburgh.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Temporary and permanent?

Mr. Willis: The temporary programme has finished.
The problem, thanks to the failure of Members opposite to see that we got our share of houses between the wars, is much too big and too urgent to be dealt with in this fashion. We have in Edinburgh a live waiting list of over 15,000 families. How can we expect these men and women, who must altogether number some 30,000, to give of their best at the present time, when it is essential in the nation's interests that everyone gives of his or her best, if we can only say to them, "You cannot get a decent home for four, five, 10, 11 or even 12 years"?
Some of these people, who are waiting in Edinburgh for houses, cannot expect them before 12 years have elapsed. During that time, of course, they will have to watch the tragedy going on, of which we are familiar, of the conditions in which they live getting worse, the lives of their children being wasted, and these children being taken over and over again to hospital, because they cannot be removed to somewhere where it is more healthy to live. How can we expect men to increase their production, which we are asking them to do and which, in fact, we must do, if they are left in conditions in which they cannot even hope to sleep and rest decently and under which they have to witness this tragic procession of events year after year? In Edinburgh according to the survey taken in 1946 over 50,000 new houses are required.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman got the figure of 50,000 houses, but the City Treasurer has said that the figure required is 30,000 to 35,000.

Mr. Willis: As a matter of fact, I was given this figure by one of the officials of the Edinburgh Corporation two or three

days ago. I am giving it in good faith, and whether it is 30,000 or 50,000 it is still considered.
When we realise the enormous job to be done, the inadequacy of this allocation for next year becomes even more pronounced. I fully realise the difficulties, which my hon. Friend is up against today. But in spite of those difficulties I want to press upon them with all the earnestness that I can the necessity to give this matter further consideration. It seems to me that it is most unwise to try to deal with this problem in this fashion, because in the long run it costs us more in health, more for police, prisons, and reformatories. It seems to me that one of the best ways in which we can eventually save money over a long period of time is to tackle this problem much more vigorously.
As housing progress declined, so have the number of men engaged on site preparation and house erection in Edinburgh fallen. In March, 1948, there were 2,331 men employed in the building of houses and in site preparation in Edinburgh. By 14th September this year the number had fallen to 876, or one-third of the number formally engaged. Even when we exclude those who were formerly engaged on the building of temporary houses and those on the preparation of sites, the number engaged in the actual erection of permanent houses has fallen during the same period from 1,087 to 769. That drop is, of course, very serious.

Commander Galbraith: The hon. Gentleman said, perhaps inadvertently, that it was a fall in the number of men engaged in the erection of temporary houses. Did he mean to say that?

It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment lapsed without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. Adams.]

Mr. Willis: We must recognise that, 18 months ago, a certain number of men were engaged in the erection of temporary houses, and that that programme has come to an end. The first figure I gave included the number of men engaged on temporary houses, but what I am now concerned about is the number of men


engaged in the erection of permanent houses. It has fallen from 1,087 to 769 in the past 18 months. That fall is undoubtedly very serious and I understand that it has already created difficulties and that those concerned with the building of houses in Edinburgh cannot get more bricklayers, plasterers and joiners. There was a plentiful supply of bricklayers a short time ago, but that is not the position today.
When the financial limit for work to be done without licence was raised to £1,000, I raised the question whether or not that alteration would have an effect upon the labour available for the building of houses. It now appears, so far as I am able to judge, that the fear I expressed at that time has been realised. It is understandable. Jobbing work is more profitable for the employer, and for the worker also, in that industry. I think that what has happened in Edinburgh is that the very large section of the building trade which is comprised of small building firms is now not available for the building of houses. Previously this available labour had been organised in the form of a building group and did build some 400 houses. Today that labour is not available. I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether he does not think that the time has now arrived when the limit of £1,000 should be reviewed. If it is operating in the manner which I suggest, should it not be revised?
I should like to put many more points about Edinburgh housing but I shall raise a point of a more general character before I conclude. During the past two or three months I have been going around houses in my constituency, and I have become increasingly impressed with the ignorance of people concerning their rights. I have come across people living in properties for which they were paying rent and for which, in my opinion, under the common law of Scotland, they should not have been paying rent at all. In fact, in a certain case, I have had the rent returned. I have also come across people who knew nothing about their rights as tenants. That was particularly the case with people living in furnished or unfurnished rooms. In the past few years we have passed most complicated legislation in order to protect tenants and to clarify the position of landlords, but we have not done sufficient to ensure that people know their rights.
We had the experience lately in the Ministry of Pensions of men who were entitled to grants, weekly payments, from the Government, and did not know of their entitlement until the Minister sent them a letter asking whether they were sure they were getting all they were entitled to. Since the Minister sent out that letter, tens of thousands of people have claimed benefits and are now receiving them. In the case of tenants' rights, or, for that matter, landlords' rights, where the legislation is far more complicated, my right hon. Friend ought to do something to enable people to appreciate exactly their position. Many of them are frightened because they know they have nowhere else to go. The duty of Parliament, it seems to me, is not simply to pass legislation to protect individuals but also to see that people are fully informed to the greatest possible extent by the Government so that they can reap the benefit of that legislation. I have raised this matter before and I know that the Scottish Department publishes a small book giving some of this information. I expect it is now out of date. I have never found anybody who possessed a copy of it.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will give this matter serious consideration. It was found possible during the war to inform soldiers and their wives of their position in regard to certain matters. Surely we can find better methods of doing the same in this very important matter, because it will become increasingly important. If the announcement to be made on Monday has the effect of delaying housing to any extent—I sincerely hope it will not it would probably be wrong if it did—this question will be increasingly important. If my hon. Friend can do anything about the matters I have raised tonight he will be doing something which-will at least lighten the burden of thousands of people in the City of Edinburgh.

10.7 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: I am in agreement with some of the points made by the hon. Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Willis). I am distressed at the size of the allocation of new houses for the City of Edinburgh. I feel that it should be greater. I am very distressed indeed at


the long waiting list of applicants for houses. Somehow or other it never seems to grow any less. One can undoubtedly see houses rising, but more and more applications for them keep coming in.
Before the war we were going ahead pretty well with the building of houses in Edinburgh. I was on the town council, representing a ward which is now part of the constituency of the hon. Member for North Edinburgh. If my memory is not at fault, I recollect being told officially in 1939 that, at the then rate of building, within five years we would complete what was then called the slum clearance and overcrowding campaign. The war intervened and the housing programme came practically to a standstill. I do not admit for a moment that the rate of building in the City of Edinburgh before the war was anything about which the Opposition or the Corporation of Edinburgh need feel any shame. It was going ahead well in comparison with other places.
I was interested in the figure of 50,000 houses mentioned by the hon. Member for North Edinburgh, and I was shocked by it, because it is a higher estimate than I have ever heard before. The last official statement I recollect was the announcement about nine months ago by the City Treasurer that 30,000 to 35,000 new houses were required, and that is a big enough order in all conscience. I am appalled to think that the position is so bad that the figure has now risen to 50,000.

Mr. Willis: As I said in my speech, believe that that was the figure given recently. I did not have the survey which was published and I could not check it.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: I hope that it is not correct for it will mean that the problem ahead will be very serious indeed. I have heard that one of the reasons for delay is what might be called administrative bottlenecks at St. Andrew's House. I know that that is not unusual for over-centralisation to be blamed, and I should like to hear the Under-Secretary on this point that there are unnecessary delays over licences at St. Andrew's House.
Another matter which arises continually is the increasing occupation of the large buildings in the western part of the

city for Government and public offices. That is always a bone of contention between the Town Council of Edinburgh and the Department of Health. I understood that there had been some gentleman's agreement as to the zone in which Government offices might spread within the City and beyond that they should not advance. I should like to know what the position is now, because I have been hearing that there have been encroachments upon dwelling houses beyond the zone which had been earmarked.
One other point is the quality of certain of the new permanent houses. I have been down to visit one or two of the houses in question because I have had complaints that the substitute used for timber for flooring is not satisfactory. The occupants of the houses seem to think it leads to dampness through condensation. Unfortunately I am not a builder, equipped with the necessary technical knowledge, but I know that in the Pilton area there have been a number of complaints about the quality of the new buildings and that part of the fault is attributed to the lack of timber. In some cases the floors are not regular, with the result that there is a certain lumpiness which is not attractive and gives an unfortunate impression. I would ask the Under Secretary to comment on that point.

10.12 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. J. Robertson): It is particularly appropriate that at the end of a long day's Debate on Scottish matters we should come to discuss this important question of Scottish housing. With regard to Edinburgh, there was a survey carried out in the early part of this year in which it was indicated that 20,000 houses were needed to combat overcrowding and subletting. It was further estimated that another 30,000 houses might be required to replace sub-standard accommodation. That would make a total of 50,000.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Was that a Department of Health survey?

Mr. Robertson: No, it was a city survey. I think it would be wise, however, if we looked at the pre-war work of the City of Edinburgh in regard to housing. The corporation produced 14,694 houses during the 20 years between the wars. That was an average of 700 per annum. Now during the period since 1945 the


corporation has built altogether in temporary and permanent houses 6,466, or an average of over 1,360 houses per year, which is nearly twice as many as the pre-war average built by the corporation.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Is it not a fact that before the war something like more than 3,000 houses per annum were being erected in the City of Edinburgh.

Mr. Robertson: I am coming to that. I am dealing now with the work of the corporation. In addition to the new houses requisitioning and Service camps have provided accommodation for 1,493 families, so that during a little over four years accommodation has been provided in Edinburgh for some 8,000 families.

Mr. Willis: Does that include the additional number provided by the subdivision of larger houses?

Mr. Robertson: No. The sub-division of larger houses has been carried out largely by private enterprise. I will give the figures because they are important. Before the war private enterprise built a large number of houses in Edinburgh—22,908 altogether—and since 1945 private enterprise has built 587 houses for owner occupiers, or about one in five of the total built, which is comparable to what has been done in England and Wales.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Is it not a fact that private enterprise is not permitted, except under very restricted licence, to build houses for owner-occupiers?

Mr. Robertson: That system has been operating, of course, since 1947, but despite that, up to September of this year, private enterprise has been able to build a ratio of one in five.
In conversions, carried out largely by private enterprise, 1,076 homes have been provided. This makes a grand total of 9,000 families rehoused in Edinburgh since 1945. Let me relate that figure to the total number of houses built in Scotland during the period under review. The total number of families accommodated is slightly over 100,000. With Edinburgh's population of rather less than one-tenth of the total population of Scotland, slightly under one-tenth of the total accommodation which has been provided, has been provided for families

in Edinburgh. Edinburgh, therefore, has not been lacking in civic responsibility and has had, on the whole, not an unfair share of the total building throughout Scotland on a population basis.
I want to refer to the allocations for 1950. Edinburgh Corporation have been allocated 1,200 houses for general needs, all of which are to be brought under construction before this time next year. Of these, 541 have been authorised to be started this year. We took that step because we saw that Edinburgh was beginning to run down on its number of houses under construction. Despite the fact that these houses were part of the 1950 programme, we arranged that Edinburgh could start their building in the current quarter. In addition, we have offered the city of Edinburgh 150 houses for the special miners' programme. I understand that the corporation are now considering this proposal. The arrangement is that 50 per cent. of these 150 houses would be for miners who are citizens of Edinburgh and the remaining half for miners in the Lothian coalfields wishing to reside in the city.
With regard to allocations of houses for Edinburgh compared with other cities in Scotland, Glasgow in the 1950 allocations, with a population of almost three times the population of Edinburgh, has had an allocation of 1,500 and, in addition, 350 from the Scottish Special Housing Association. Edinburgh's allocation is at present 1,200. Aberdeen, with a population of just over 180,000, has 300 houses allocated and Dundee, with a population of just over 180,000, has 380 houses allocated. It will be seen, therefore, that Edinburgh has received a relatively higher allocation than the other cities and I wish to explain the reason.
In fixing the allocation for 1950 regard was had to the fact that Edinburgh has pursued a policy of restraint in the matter of inviting tenders during the period since the end of the war and, in consequence, we considered it was fair that Edinburgh should have a relatively higher allocation for 1950 than the other cities. Regard was also had to the speed with which Edinburgh was able to build the houses and to the number she had under construction. Edinburgh has now about 1,000 houses under construction and has 102 houses approved but not yet begun.
We shall watch the position very carefully. It has to be watched very carefully because we do not desire to get into difficulties by overbalancing the housing programme generally in Scotland and giving the building industry more than they can carry out. We have just emerged from that and are not anxious to get back to it. We shall watch the position carefully and if the Edinburgh City Council, with its very active housing committee, can persuade the builders to build houses faster than they are doing and if the material and labour are there—which are also tremendously important—we shall look very favourably on any approach the Corporation may make during the course of 1950 to see whether we can add to the numbers we have already allocated.
This is not the last word. It may be that if there are in Scotland certain local authorities which have been given allocations which they cannot complete for some reason or other—perhaps siting difficulties or something of that nature—if Edinburgh is very eager and has the available labour and sites ready she may stand to benefit, as in the past, by getting houses with which other local authorities were not able to proceed.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Does that apply—subject to those two conditions, that they get on with the job quickly enough and that there is sufficient labour and material—to other parts of Scotland, particularly the rural parts?

Mr. Robertson: I do not think we can upset the allocations made because they have been very carefully worked out and we have every reason to believe that most local authorities will be able to fulfil obligations during the course of 1950, but I am thinking of one or two local authorities which are having difficulty in getting sites ready in time and, as we are most anxious to get on with the housing programme over the whole of Scotland, we are not going to wait on slow-moving authorities getting sites ready. If they have not the sites ready it may be necessary to take some of the houses away from these slow-moving authorities and to give them to other local authorities. Certainly that does not apply specially to Edinburgh; it will apply to other local authorities also.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Willis) mentioned there had been a rather alarming fall in the labour force in Edinburgh. It is perfectly true. Edinburgh had a large number of temporary houses which were only completed last year, and when they were completed there was a migration of that labour force out to the Lothians to build houses for miners and agricultural workers. In some respects it was a very good thing that we were able to get that labour diverted from the cities out to the areas which were probably rather less attractive for building workers so as to get on with the agricultural programme and the programme for the miners. We need more building labour in the country areas to meet the clamant need of houses for agricultural workers.

Mr. William Ross: Can my hon. Friend give us any figures to show us whether or not the fall was entirely due to that or to what extent it was due to the extension of jobbing work?

Mr. Robertson: I can give figures for the whole of Scotland but I have not figures for Edinburgh alone. The figures for the whole of Scotland show that by the end of October, 1948, we had 31,200 building operatives employed on new housing. By the end of August, 1949, there were 25,700 so employed, a drop of 5,500 during the period. Much of that was labour coming off site preparation but during that time there was a relative drop in the number of houses under construction. That does not mean that the housing programme was put out of balance. Indeed we brought it into balance. There has been a rapid speedup of the completion of houses during this period. Indeed Scotland has built more permanent new houses this year than was done in the whole of 1948. The drop in the building force is relative to the drop in the number of houses under construction, which has actually given us a higher number of completions.
I do not know that I can say much more about that except in relation to the point which was made about unlicensed building up to £1,000. We are carefully watching that matter, and recently at a meeting with the builders in Glasgow I mentioned the alarm felt at the reduction in the building force and at the large number of people employed on conversions


and repair work. I indicated that we were looking at the matter very carefully and we might have to consider whether it would be necessary to carry forward the provision of a licence being required for building up to £1,000.
In regard to the final point relating to the advice which the Department might be able to give to people who come within the terms of the Rent Restrictions Act, it is no part of the Department's duty to give legal advice. We will however consider the point, which is a very valuable one. I will ask my right hon. Friend to suggest to the B.B.C. that something might perhaps be done in that way to familiarise people with their rights as tenants under the Rent Restrictions Act.
As I say, the position in Edinburgh will be carefully watched. The Edinburgh

Corporation have had a very good record during the period since the end of the war, and if it is possible to induce the builders to build more speedily in Edinburgh we shall certainly do what we can to help them on with their work. We know of course that parts of Edinburgh constitute some of the black spots which need attention, just as do parts of Glasgow and the other cities. Because of that my right hon. Friend and those of us concerned with this great problem of Scottish housing do—

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half past Ten o'Clock.